Arms, Armour & Militaria

Austria: This broken pane of glass formed a haunting reminder of the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, which precipitated World War I.

The Tin Trunk: Letters and Drawings by Cosmo Clark

UK: BOXLOCK shotguns are the most common of British fowling firearms and those with bolt-actions are certainly not unusual, but this particular model, left, aroused great interest at Weller and Dufty’s (15 per cent premium) arms and armour auction in Birmingham on March 14.

FRANCE: Three French museums have become embroiled in legal controversy after harbouring works of art looted from their original owners during the Nazi occupation of France during the Second World War.

UK: OTHER auctioneers may look for a seasonal angle but, as Birmingham arms and armour specialists Weller & Dufty (15 per cent buyer’s premium) are aware, the arms trade is not a natural beneficiary of the Christmas spirit. True, the two murderous six-shot pepperbox pistols, right, could have been carried by a passenger on one of those Christmas card coaches, but they were among the day’s top bids on December 6 for the less sentimental values of rarity and condition.

UK: ARTS Minister Alan Howarth has announced that the Government will pay £125,000 compensation to a family forced to sell a painting as they fled the Nazis.

YAHOO have decided to ban sales of Nazi memorabilia and other items promoting racism from their Website from January 10.

UK: IN THE days when thousands of game birds would be shot in a morning on the moors by the likes of Walsingham and Ripon, it might have come as a shock to learn that no records of this gun ever making a successful kill existed, even more so when the target was many thousand times the size of your average pheasant.

FRANCE: THREE French museums have become embroiled in legal controversy after harbouring works of art looted from their original owners during the Nazi occupation of France during World War II.

THE French courts have suspended Yahoo’s appeal against a ban on its Web auctions of Nazi memorabilia while technical experts see if there is a way to prevent French Web-users gaining access to them.

FRANCE: A Paris court has told one of the world’s leading Websites to prevent French Web-users from gaining access to auctions featuring Nazi memorabilia.

UK: GIANT knives of the frontier period hold a special place in the heart of American collectors, and the late 19th century example by one of the leading Sheffield makers of Bowie-style knives for the American market – Brookes and Crookes – was eagerly contested by US bidders at Martyn Rowe’s Truro salerooms on May 26.

UK: THIS early 18th century flintlock pistol possesses a combination of characteristic features which should leave the curious in no doubt as to its country of origin.

UK: JUST as rocket fuel was essential to the stratospheric aims of the V1 and V2 missiles towards the end of WW2, so the altigraph was mandatory to the success of Germany’s highest flying secret of WW1.

GERMANY: SOME of the most unusual and fascinating military vehicles ever built are to be auctioned on May 15 when the contents of the Historical and Technical Museum of Nümbrecht are sold off.

UK: “PLACE the flattened end of the flagstaff in the socket made for it, then raise the hammer until it catches the base of the flag socket and remains upright: place a cap in the capholder and mount the soldiers along the trench.