Arms, Armour & Militaria

The button from the Lancaster bomber of 617 Squadron that released the ‘bouncing bomb’ which destroyed the Möhne Dam has sold after being offered at auction for the first time.

An RAF logbook added value to a Second World War casualty group sold at Ipswich saleroom Lockdales (19.5% buyer’s premium) on July 15-16.

Operations behind enemy lines was the theme linking two special forces medals groups sold by London auction house Spink (20% buyer’s premium) on July 26.

Medals for service in the Falklands, Northern Ireland and long service/good conduct denote a busy 1980s career. In value terms, for a non-special forces unit, it means a price probably within £1000 at auction. But it is a single action lasting about 17 minutes from start to finish which explains why such a group on offer at Woolley & Wallis on November 22 is estimated at £20,000-30,000.

Thomas Del Mar, former Sotheby’s specialist and founder of the 25 Blythe Road group of auctioneers, turns fair organiser next month. The first Olympia Arms Fair takes place on September 30.

The London Antique Arms Fair is usually a biannual event, but this year the organiser is rather busy – in November they are putting together the Passchendaele Salute 2017 at Fort Seclin near Lille, France.

A unique Victoria Cross and other awards won by one of the greatest heroes in Canadian history is to be auctioned by Dix Noonan Webb on September 27.

Warwick arms and armour dealer Runjeet Singh will have a representative at the new Olympia fair (see separate story) but he has a ‘fixture clash’ to cope with. The west London show coincides with his first exhibition in Asia.

Medals and orders can be heavy things. So what better way to carry around your various hard-earned gongs than a one-size-fits-all miniature version of them all?

Considering there were only 150 men defending Rorke’s Drift against the Zulus, an impressive number of medals awarded after that epic 1879 encounter have come to auction recently.

Personal and unique insights into warfare score highly at auction. So it proved at Cambridge firm Cheffins (22.5% buyer’s premium) in The Connoisseurs Sale on July 6, when a journal revealing the private thoughts of a Second World War fighter ace credited with more enemy ‘kills’ than any other British pilot doubled the top estimate to sell for £16,000.

In the days when loved ones in the armed forces would head abroad on service for up to several years, not knowing when or if they would return, ‘sweetheart’ brooches were a way of remembering them.

As weapons of war, swords have an impressively long history, as demonstrated by recent auctions around the world. From two £11,000 Viking swords at Bonhams in London to General Patton’s 1945 presentation sabre at Hermann Historica (€54,000/£47,370), there were centuries of warfaring history on view, including blades from Japan, Korea and Greece.

Two American presentation swords, marking high points in two very different military careers, made their mark in recent sales.

Cased pairs of pistols remain a particular favourite with collectors, being relatively compact and often in excellent condition after centuries cocooned in their brass-bound mahogany boxes.

Sporting guns are a little different from other areas of the arms and armour market in that many that are well over 100 years old are still in use today.

Russ Withem has joined Morphy Auctions as a firearms expert in the company’s firearms and militaria division.

Thomas Del Mar (24% buyer’s premium) sold the first instalment of de-accessioned arms and armour from the John Woodman Higgins Museum in Massachusetts back in 2013 and a second in 2014.

The pick of a good selection of military muskets and rifles in Anthony Cribb’s (20% buyer’s premium) sale in Abingdon on June 27 was a relatively rare example of the Baker rifle issued to British rifle regiments from the beginning of the 19th century until the 1830s.