Arms, Armour & Militaria

There has been considerable reportage on the subject of commemorative medals at auction recently, and the considerable museum participation in auction sales. So spare a thought for the dealer who issues fixed-price lists. Two fine English fixed-price catalogues have recently thudded through my letterbox.

Greg Martin is a name synonymous with the finest and the most spectacularly expensive of American firearms. In this respect the June 16 Greg Martin Auctions sale will live up to expectations with a rare 1849 Colt revolver, but most British attention will be focused on a group of Nelson memorabilia which includes Vice Admiral Collingwood’s copy of Nelson’s standing orders for battle, drawn up on the Victory on October 9-10, 1805 and signed Nelson & Brontë.

ONE of the highlights of Bonhams & Langlois' (15% buyer's premium) March 26 Channel Islands theme sale was a collection of uniforms and associated ephemera and family history relating to three senior members of the Jersey Militia.

PARIS expert Alain Weil must be a busy man as he was also the expert for Pierre Bergé & Associés general sale on April 3 that included a 76-lot section devoted to médailles artistique, to use the French expression.

FOR one day only on Sunday, February 16 the London Marriott Hotel in Grosvenor Square will be a magnet for serious collectors of antique arms and armour when The London Park Lane Arms Fair celebrates its 20th anniversary.

Those Entrusted with Arms by Frederick Wilkinson, published by Greenhill Books/Royal Armouries ISBN 1853675237 £19.95 hb

This full dress uniform of an officer from the Duke of Wellington’s West Riding regiment, right, was an important diversion from the main proceedings at Duke’s auction in Dorchester. Under normal circumstances this would have been a standard lot of textile militaria for the trade, but this uniform actually belonged to the sixth Duke of Wellington and had passed by descent to the vendor.

Shot by a sniper when aboard HMS Victory at the crowning moment of his career, Admiral Lord Nelson is without doubt Britain’s finest maritime hero. When news of his death, after triumping at the Battle of Trafalgar, reached London George III made the decision to break with tradition and give Nelson a state funeral.

THE heroic exploits of the first Duke of Wellington in defeating Napoleon at Waterloo must be among the best recorded events in British military history.

Inherently rare – in occupied France you wouldn’t want to be caught with a copy – this flimsy sheet of propaganda issued by the maquis at the height of WWII comes up for sale at Dominic Winter Book Auctions in Swindon on August 28.

THE pocket Derringer was a popular weapon for Western movie card-sharps, proving discretion could get the better of valour, but these palm-sized precursors look more lethal to the user than the intended victim.

Ever keen to come up with new auction formats that stimulate the interest of private buyers, Bonhams (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) held their first sale of sporting and ornithological pictures combined with sporting guns at Knightsbridge on August 7-8.

The schwein-degen, or boar sword, is a rare beast. Good examples can elude collectors for decades, and the cobwebbed halls of schloss- dwelling aristocrats are a favourite hiding place. So there was plenty of excitement when an example broke cover at Sotheby’s sale of arms and armour in London on July 10.

PROOF that the specialist collector knows no close season was offered in June by Weller & Dufty (15% buyer’s premium), at Birmingham and Wallis & Wallis (15% buyer’s premium), Lewes, who held sales devoted to arms and armour and militaria on consecutive days.

This month has seen a crop of antique arms and armour offered in the London rooms with Sotheby’s, Christie’s and Bonhams all holding sales in July. Pictured here is the most expensive item of the summer series, a rare cased Colt belt revolver of c.1840, which made £200,000 at Bonhams’ (17.5/10% buyer’s premium) sale in their Bond Street rooms on July 24.

Sotheby’s announcement of the discovery of a cache of Nelson memorabilia that has been hidden away for almost 200 years has generated huge media interest.

Butterfields, the San Francisco auctioneers, who made the national press in March following the controversy over a Malcolm X archive, were front page material again in June following the sale of the only surviving parts from the atomic bomb dropped over Hiroshima.

JOINING the illustrious roster of exhibitors at this month’s Grosvenor House Art and Antiques Fair, which runs at Mayfair’s Grosvenor House Hotel from June 12 to 18, is the distinguished arms and armour dealer Peter Finer.

THE seven medals and insignia right are a stirring memento of one of the greatest moments in British military history. They are the service medals and awards, including the G.C.B and K.C.B of the Order of the Bath, Netherlandish Military Order of William and Russian Order of St Vladimir, presented to General Sir Peregrine Maitland.

The defence and relief of Mafeking (1899) in the Boer War has a particular resonance in British history, and three Victoria Crosses were awarded for valour during the action. As a result, medals from this action generate more than usual interest.