The UK's Finest Independent Forum for Shooters and Gun Owners. Est 2010.

I've never collected militaria, but a very dear friend used to.

He had a thing about WW1 and specifically the Machine Gun Corps and WW2 flyers. He actually had two male manequins in his living room in full WW2 flying gear. One was called "Ginger" and the other "Rogers".....

I suppose it's OK to regale the next story as he's unfortunately been dead for 10 years now...... :shifty:

His wife came home one afternoon to find he had hired a small "bob cat" digger. At the bottom of his 150ft garden which backed onto open farm land, he was digging a trench! Over the next couple of months, duck boards, wriggly tin, barbed wire and sand bags were added. As were "road signs" of the type, "Ypres 34km" etc.....

When he was finished, he had a full scale, replica WW1 trench!!!! Regularly you'd call round to find him sitting in the trench, with a steel helmet on, listening to a BBC sound effects tape, drinking cider and reading one book or another on trench warfare! :shakeshout:

Good God. Typing that has just brought home again how much I miss him.......

I have quite a bit but not really a structured collection. Bayonets, rifle accessories and such like. I do have a penchant for Pattern '37 webbing items though and have quiet a bit of that a lot of which I use on a daily basis my man bag is a signals satchel for instance. When I was in the world of work I used map cases instead of a brief case. They also make excellent carriers targets and scoring stuff on the firing point.

Aye, posted on here not long ago about the husband of a woman my good lady worked with. He was an ardent collecter of militaria in fact he had that much he was looking to off load some to a museum. Playing with a "deactivated" hand grenade one day, when - bang it blew his hand off, I suppose he may have got off lucky.

Regards

Phil*

One of our forum members sent me the following images, these items (this is just a few of the images!) were collected from the Corridor of Death.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falaise_pocket

..and a few more, now this is what I call collecting

Re-

Nice pieces !!
I especially like the Scharnhorst's cap-tally ...

Yes I spotted that as well, not sure how it ended up in a cellar in that part of France.

I have a few bits from WWII of my Fathers and WWI Royal Navy of my Grandfathers , also a few bayonets I have collected over the years , odds and ends of inert ammo ,

Dave

I worked with a Frenchman who had a penchant for collecting bits & pieces from the old battlefields; he had lots of stuff in his kitchen window sill until one day an incendiary mortar bomb caught fire; it turns out that most of his 'trophies' were live!
Les Pompiers had to evacuate the village & let his house burn due all sorts of stuff cooking off! He just shrugged it off. :roll:

Mon Dieu, qu'est-ce une collection!

stocksmi