Arms, Armour & Militaria

“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…”

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

The arts of the Ottoman court are performing strongly in the marketplace. The unexpected highlight of Lyon & Turnbull’s Five Centuries auction in Edinburgh on February 5 was an Ottoman saddle.

The George Medal awarded to a brave boxer who stepped in to foil a kidnap attempt on Princess Anne is up for auction at Dix Noonan Webb in London with an estimate of £15,000-20,000 on March 4-5.

A record take of £48m and a one-third increase in the number of lots available to bidders – ATG reviews a healthy 2019 for London numismatic saleroom

Gustav Detring (1842-1913) and Constantin von Hanneken (1854-1925) were two of the most influential Germans living and working in China in the late 19th century.

Spink (20% buyer’s premium) offered the only Victoria Cross group to appear at auction in 2019.

An antiques centre specialising in militaria including books has opened in the Bedfordshire town of Biddenham.

If the story of the sinking of the Bismarck in 1941 is well known, the fate of sister ship the Tirpitz is less familiar.

This bronze Albert Medal, awarded to Lieutenant John Edward Gibbons (1905-71) for saving life at sea, sold for £8000 (plus 20% buyer’s premium) at Bonhams Knightsbridge.

The arms fair held in the Pillar Hall in Olympia is moving to another venue in west London which provides greater space.

Claymores (the word comes from the Scottish Gaelic claidheamh-mor meaning ‘great sword’) were the weapon of choice in the ongoing warfare between Highland clans and border skirmishes with the English from c.1400-1700.