Skipper's trench art collection.

Offered to me by a friend. This is a 40 mm 1942 dated shell used to make a lamp.

 

my latest, now consider this how scene is painted on a tiny 20 mm shell case!

 

Found this British WWI trench art lighter at a local garage sale. On the other side it has a George V coin.

 

Great trench art collection I like them all.

Eric

 

Thanks Erich, I will post more items soon, due to a lack of time I haven't posted my newest objects.

 

1944 original liberation art.
This tiny hand painted "sweetheart" brass necklace were made by vendors in Paris and sold to the population and to the G.I.s who loved to take those home . Only few remain intact nowadays and they are quite popular in WW2 collections. The few milimeter surface needed a great dexterity for the painting of the flags which despite being aproximate are easy to recognise . The presence of the Red flaf makes this 1944 as after 1945 red flags be removed.

 

A tiny bottle with cup made out of lead and not bigger than a key chain!

 

Well, it has been a while since I found more trench art and I was starting to get resignated whne Icame accross this beauty at a garage sale. The old lady was selling all kind of junk and and Ialmost didn't notice what looke dto be a paper weight made with a German 75 mm shell head. It looke dbeautiful with all the adjustment markings which still rotated, so I bought it. It is only whne I brought to a friend for a close expertise that we realise the cap had a tiny hinge, that could open and was in fact an ink pot!
On the picture with the red background you will notice the corrosion that was still on the hinge and shows it had not been opened for decades. Enjoy.

 

Wow!!!! Brilliant stuff!!!

 

Great stuff!

 

Thanks friends, it's the growing result of many years of roaming through flea markets, fairs and garage sales. Sometimes you find , most of the time you don't: it's a matter of luck and from time to time you get the bingo.

 

Need some coffee and milk? What about pouring it from some trnech made 75er shell cans?

 

Latest find a Commonwealth (South African soldier) trench lighter

 

Skipper,

Could I ask your opinion about a piece I own? This "thing" below came back from the Pacific theater and is an exact copy of a Colt Police Positive in .32 caliber. It's made of brass with some iron or steel pins here and there. The ejector rod tip appears to be from a spark plug. The grips are some tropical hardwood, perhaps mahogany.
The scary thing is that the bore was once rifled and the rifling is largely gone from the rear, so somebody shot this thing, a lot. It may have been a guerrilla gun.

Is it trench art? Does it have any great value?

 

more like a home made item. It would have taken to long long to make this in a trench or at the rear. This is probably a civilian made item, quite interesting though.

 

I agree with Skipper - a very interesting item indeed, but highly unlikely to be 'trench art' as such. Please don't take this as definitive, but my immediate reaction is that it's almost like a 'jungle workshop' copy, similar to the copy Thompsons used and made in Vietnam by the Viet Cong.

 

That's what I've always figured. I don't really know where trench art ends and something else begins. I've always figured they used brass from shells for the raw material since it dates back to WWII days.

 

Two skittles worked out of 12.7mm bullets. One is dated 1942 and the other one 1943. As a reminder, in the French army the skittle is a gift from your comrades of arm yo uget the day you get your honorable discharge. It is usually a hand crafted skittle, either wood or brass and on which could be added insignias and souvenirs fro mthe soldiers career. The Skittle (quille) stems from the ship ''la Quille'' which sailed home ex-convicts from Cayenne, French Guyanna home. So when you get the "quille" it means you served your time and that you are going home.

 

Those are extraordinary - I've never seen anything like them before....

 

I have many more skittles, some are huge, some are tiny (2mm ). Most are about 2 to 5 cm and used as keychains . The biggest I have seen was made with a tank shell. I will scan a few more for you and post them here.