TOPIC:

Everhard,

I think Rob is probably right and that this is an ABW or early post-ABW-period piece. However, I'm not sure that it is P.O.W. work. It would be very unusual for an artisan to produce something like this without including at least one of the following: the name of the camp; the name of the maker; an indication that it was made by a P.O.W. ("Prisoner of War", "P.O.W.", "Krygsgevangene" or "K.G.V."). Also, the style of the inscription doesn't look like anything I have seen on a P.O.W. carving before.

From the typography, and, in particular the "2" and the "J", I would say this almost certainly wasn't made in the UK. The inscription has a much more Continental look to it to me, which would make sense for a Boer-made piece.

Neville

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Rob, Neville thanks for the glimmers of light in these dark days before Christmas. As for potential Continental production it probably wasn’t done in Holland as the Dutch would use the word Spion. Spioen is as Afrikaans as driehoek-kerrykoek. The inclusion of 23 January is understandable as on that date Warren started his ascent on Buller’s orders. I checked with Neville, and the other good thing is that I did not acquire this item from the magician who can turn innocuous objects into Napoleon’s personal accoutrements.

EFV: amper maar nog nie stamper nie!
www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=...hoekie+koelie+koekie

Just because a piece features in a published work, it does not necessarily follow that it's genuine.

A photograph of this compass is reproduced in Kornelia Takacs' book "Compass Chronicles" under the sub-heading "Boer War Compasses". However, the machine-engraved inscription is a recent addition.




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I suspected this bayonet probably wasn't right when I bought it, but thought it worth a punt. My fears were confirmed when the same seller listed further items with identical labels, one of which I knew was not as it seemed.

The condition of the wood of the bayonet grip appeared much too good for an item that had been subjected to the extremes of the South African climate for ten years. Other than this, the inspection and issue dates were as one might expect for a Boer War bayonet (1897 and 1899 respectively)

A week or so after purchasing this item, other similarly-labelled pieces appeared on eBay, including a fragment of driving band, supposedly picked up during the siege of Ladysmith. The photographs of the latter showed four unevenly spaced square-section channels on the underside of the band (caused during manufacture, when the copper is pressed into the driving-band groove near the base of the shell). As all British guns used during the ABW fired shells with evenly-spaced triangular-section ribs in their driving-band grooves, the label was exposed for what it was – a recent addition to enhance the value of a nondescript fragment of shrapnel, with no provenance. Boer (Krupp & Creusot) shells had plain section driving-band grooves, without ribs.










On the right, the underside of the copper band with unevenly spaced square-section grooves, which do not correspond with the equidistant triangular-section ribs found in the driving-band grooves cut into shells used in South Africa.







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This thread prompted me today to have another look at a bandolier which I had assumed was a post ABW version. I had assumed that the "woodgrain" effect on the strap meant it was post 1902, so I was delighted to see this surface effect was just shrinkage, and the Martin's Patent stamps were just visible, making this a genuine Boer bandolier.
In the composite pictures, mine is on the right.