Arms, Armour & Militaria

Norfolk auction house sells 11 guns with provenance to one of the most renowned enthusiasts

Ken tanto, distinguished by double-edged blades, are one of the rarer styles of Japanese sword. Most were made as Buddhist ritual implements rather than weapons and are decorated accordingly.

Among the most successful printing projects marking the Napoleonic Wars were the series of aquatints by Thomas Sutherland (1785-1838) after watercolours by the young William Heath (c.1795-1840) titled The Martial Achievements of Great Britain and Her Allies from 1799 to 1815.

Among the highlights of Antony Cribb’s Spring Virtual Arms and Armour sale was a collection of presentation swords.

This flag offered at East Bristol Auctions (18% buyer’s premium) carries inscriptions for HMS Swiftsure – British Pacific Fleet – 1945, and the Japanese cities Sasebo and Tokyo.

Four military maps encompassing Siam (Thailand), Hong Kong, Iraq, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia took an unexpected £3700 at the Peter Wilson (22% buyer’s premium) Arms, Militaria, Medals & Firearms auction earlier this year.

Interest from bidders in more than 40 countries competed for what Stroud Auctions (18% buyer’s premium plus VAT) called a “world-class private collection of over 4000 military badges”.

The Crimea medal awarded to one of only two officers taken prisoner by the Russians during the calamitous Charge of the Light Brigade in 1854 sold for £14,000 at London saleroom Dix Noonan Webb (25% buyer’s premium).

Bosleys has launched a new format for its auctions, including a move from Marlow to Staffordshire.

The Church of England was Geoffrey Garner’s vocation in life – collecting military badges his hobby

The best-seller lists these days will always include a good number of explosive memoirs written by special forces veterans and their heroic stories usually also mean high interest at auction.

Before British female nurses could even help with the wounded they faced a battle to be accepted, as the story behind a medal winner reveals.

“Something awful. Never witnessed anything like it before. After a bombardment of a week the Germans mounted their own trenches and the infantry reckon that every German had a machine gun…”

An historic archive belonging to the engineer who oversaw the design of the Mulberry Harbours in the Second World War comes to auction in Cumbria later this month.

Second-dibs sales at regional salerooms – those that follow after a major London auctioneer has cherry-picked the contents of a stately country house – can sometimes acquire the slighting epithet of ‘crumbs from a rich man’s table’.

A silver medal on offer at Gorny & Mosch in Munich on March 9-10 commemorates the last pitched battle fought on the British mainland.

A 16th century composite suit of armour that had been assembled by a specialist curator in this field at the Metropolitan Museum of Art proved to be the toast of a sale held by Morphy.