WW2 cartridges and brass toothpick (?!!!), please help ID

[yaxthri]

Hello fellow treasure hunters and WW2 enthusiasts.
I've posted this on a war relics site (since they are quite the specialists...) but got no response yet so I'll ask you nice people for some help, too. Lots of knowledge accumulated here...

I found some cartridges today at a new spot (coast trenches in Greece) and I though of asking for your help to ID my finds.



I have found over the years many spent bullet casings and these 2 types are quite abundant at my favorite hunting location, a german beach bunker. Now I find these at this new spot I previously had found only barbed wire remnants.
The shorter casing is a 7mm (?) caliber (bottom diametre 11mm, height 5,2 cm), the taller one 9mm caliber (bottom diametre 12mm, height 5,9cm).
Any info on which side used these? The manufacture dates are pretty clear but what does SMI (or is it GMI) mean?
And then I found this brass object (nice verdigris patina) that looks like a toothpick. What is this?

Some days ago I found a flare cartridge, not just the casing but an intact one. No markings on it, looks like it's made of aluminum, it's pretty worn by the sea, it has a sea worm attached to it, the top is sealed with a green paint. I found it on the beach near the WW2 bunker mentioned above. The rim of the bottom is either scalloped on it's one half or it used to be scalloped all the way round but was worn down by the sea? It's dimensions are: top diametre 2,5cm, bottom diametre 3cm, height 5,4cm. Is this a german WW2 flare or maybe a post war flotsam find? Any ideas?



And last just a find I wanted to share. Walked past this bush at my hunting spot the other day and I saw in it's middle a round looking silvery dirty object. I checked it out and thought "Wow! A german water canteen!". Then I saw this curious "collar" with a rusted ring and the rest of a buckle still on it. This made me doubt my find... To make a long story short it turned out that it's a greek army canteen from the '50s... Went back and looked for the lost screw-on top, but had no luck with that.
Would love to have found the "real thing" and not a careless camper's trash but it's still a nice find, don't you agree?

 

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[DCMatt]

Cool finds.

BTW, we can't access your picks that are posted on the other page without logging in there. That makes it difficult to see details.

I think your signal flare is fairly modern. Do a search on Olin 25mm signal flares to see some similar.

DCMatt

 

[BosnMate]

Sorry I can't help you on the empty cartridges, but just a guess on the "toothpick". Perhaps a broken off pin that held a unit badge or medal in place. Seems to be a little long for a collar item, but perhaps a hat of over pocket.

 

[mirage83]

Regarding your cartridge casings, SMI is the Societa Metallurgica Italiana, cartridges manufactured in Italy. They manufactured a fairly large variety of calibers over the years, so I'm uncertain at this point about the actual calibers you've found. Interesting finds though, keep it up.

 

[yaxthri]

Thank you people for the info.
Espacially the info about the italian made ammo is great, I'll check with the local historians if there was an Italian auxilliary occupation force here along with the Germans during WW2.
Sorry DCMatt, I did the repost from the warrelics site to TNet at the office so I had not the actual files with me and I was too lazy to download and resave them... So I will add them to this post, too for you to see :-) And I will check for the flare type you suggested.