Just been given a WW1 bayonet 🙂 Does it have any value?

The fecker is 17inch long and is in it’s scabbard.

Something for Saturday night I reckon 😉 the chavs would love it.

That looks very similar to one my dad had – if it is the same, I think it is French. Could be wrong mind you.

Looks similar to one that my Grandad has for a .303 Enfield rifle

I sort some pix out.

Yup, I’d say that’s from a Smellie (Short Magazine Lee Enfield – SMLE – Smellie…). The bloke at the desk opposite me is a very knowledgeable battlefield tour guide and has a rather “interesting” collection militaria, including an SMLE and bayonet – hefty piece of kit, even more cumbersome with a sword bayonet fitted.

Fantastic bit of history – hard to imagine having to stick that into another person.
Does it have personal history?

I only ask because I have just been given my grandfathers “tin” complete with WWI DCM, letter from the King, and a medal from the RSPCA for saving a dog from the sea at the end of Blackpool pier. Never knew any of this until we opened the tin in 1983 when he died all sorts of tangible, family history.

Then again the current rifle is getting cumbersome with all the bolt-on cr@p we keep getting issued to make it meaner – underslung grenade launcher, night vision, laser sights, broomhandle foregrips, etc, etc…

anything £100 – 130 notes i guess

Yeah.The personnel history is here:

Great grandfather was in the Glosters at Hill 60 🙁 KIA
http://www.hellfire-corner.demon.co.uk/hill60.htm

Another great uncle in the Navy as a stoker.

<jones>They don’t like it up em</jones>

Actually details here:
http://www.britisharmedforces.org/li_pages/regiments/rgbwli/rgbw_pruett.htm

Sounded like a bag of cat sick. Perhaps we forget sometimes how easy we have got it 😯

Better not sell it … something for the future generations.

Keep it.

I’m defo keeping.

Sadly the medals are missing 🙁

Got a 1914 Star from my Mums side 🙂

I have my maternal grandfather’s 1914 Star in a box somewhere. He was in the Seaforth Highlanders TA at the start of the war and was in France/Belgium from Oct 1914 to 1918.

Three of his brothers died during the war though. His only other brother survived the war but drowned within 30 miles of home on 1/1/19 in the Iolaire disaster.

The old dear has a transport order her grandfather kept a hold of from WW1.

He used to drive an officer called Edward about. They even once got thrown from the car by a shell exploding nearby.

The Officer later used to be seen in the company of one Mrs Wallis Simpson !

My grandfather was one of 8 kids, the eldest and him, the youngest, were both awarded DCM on the same day (believe it’s the only time in history that’s happened).
He was captured in France and escaped. Put on despatch riding duties, won for getting messages through under heavy fire, rescuing soldiers and an officer from no man’s land. His brother was in the medical corps – no idea why he won his. Middle brother won the Mons Star – have a pic of all three together in uniform. Was a wily old sod, loved him to bits. Hard to imagine what they went through. Eldest went to the battlefields 2 years ago with school – youngest going in a couple of weeks.
Really important that the kids remember what happened.

Victory Medal, British War Medal, 1914 Star, Military Medal

(Originals not located: Photoshopped montage)

As awarded to my Great Uncle, 26715 Battery Quartermaster Sergeant William H. Brown MM, 30th Battery, XXXIX Brigade, 1st Division Royal Field Artillery, who died 24th July 1916 aged 31 of injuries sustained during a German artillery bombardment in the first days of the Battle of the Somme, and who now rests at Heilly Station Cemetery, Mericourt l’Abbe, France.

N.B.

The 1914 Star is often incorrectly referred to as the Mons Star

My widowed grandmother remarried in her 80s, to a gentleman that had lost his five brothers in WWI. He came through unscathed (physically).

The 1914 Star is often incorrectly referred to as the Mons Star

That’ll be the one. Family always called it the Mons Star – no idea where it is now but it’s on the pic.