Arms, Armour & Militaria

A 2m (6ft 7in) pen and ink drawing, estimated at £5000-7000 in Olympia Auctions on April 17 in west London, forms an intriguing eyewitness view of the final moments of the Indian Mutiny.

A 23-year-old paratrooper’s account of escaping the Battle of Arnhem sold for £3200, over 10 times the top estimate at 1818 Auctioneers (20% buyer’s premium inc VAT) of Milnthorpe, Cumbria, on March 5.

The largest battleships ever constructed in Germany posed a huge threat to the Allies. A rare medal group sold in London tells the remarkable story of how one of them was disabled.

Factors dictating the pricing of Naval General Service Medals were clearly demonstrated in the March 6 sale at Bosleys (20% buyer’s premium) in Marlow. Ten NGSMs were offered as part of a large single-owner medal collection.

Lawrences of Crewkerne’s militaria auction on May 16 will include an important set of awards and medals to Vice Admiral Sir HT Walwyn.

A rifle from the personal armoury of Tipu Sultan sold for £60,000 in Oxfordshire last week.

A hunger strike ‘Fed By Force’ medal awarded to Suffragette Selina Martin (1882-1972) has been snapped up at auction by an Australian museum.

Historic military specialist Michael D Long offers this Victorian Royal Artillery officer’s sabretache and pouch for £785 at the London Antique Arms Fair.

Thousands of items are available to buy from dealers online. Here we pick out one that caught our eye this week.

'The Vintage and Classic Arms Fair' will run at Kempton Park Racecourse in Sunbury, Middlesex, on Sunday, March 24.

Specialist auction house Dix Noonan Webb bought the dedicated Britannia Medal Fair in 2018 from the event’s previous owner, Mark Carter.

Laws relating to antique firearms and bladed weapons are set to change in the UK this year. Dealers, auctioneers and collectors will be affected by both the offensive weapons bill and an amendment to the Policing and Crime Act 2017 which are set to become law in 2019.

It is a quarter of a century since ATG’s first overview of London’s numismatic auction market. Here we review the heads and the tails of 2018.

Historical weapons from the personal armoury of Tipu Sultan will be offered for sale in Oxfordshire in the spring.

Pistols remain one of the most popular of all categories among gun collectors and the winter sales in London proved a bumper season for handguns, from the earliest wheel-locks of the late 16th century to the semi-automatics which ushered in the modern age at the end of the 19th century.

This rare 1870s Zulu shield or Isihlangu below sold for £1650 at the C&T (20% buyer’s premium) auction of the Mick Woodfield collection of Zulu and other tribal weapons in Tunbridge Wells on January 9.

Following the fall of Seringapatam in India on May 4, 1799, portions of the spoils were variously allocated to senior officers of the British force.

It was not a vintage season for armour in the salerooms, but in Thomas Del Mar’s (24% buyer’s premium) auction on December 5 this very original English or Flemish close helmet of c.1560 reached £11,000.