Try not to be a Boer... (Or World War One trench art that is not what it appears to be)

Almost universally recognisable, trench art has attracted a huge following in recent years and always commands considerable prices at auction, even given the amount currently on the market. But that should not concern us. The real appeal of trench art is the personal touch; its provenance. Each piece is, by its nature, unique having been carefully crafted from mundane items of kit or munitions available to the soldier at the time. That is why these pieces are not what they appear… On the surface this pair, although very well executed, are not particularly interesting. We know nothing about their origin, they are not engraved with any information, we do not even know the conflict (although we always guess at either the First or Second world wars). These items have a better story to tell, however. If we unscrew the shell itself[1] we can have a look at the head stamp. Where trench art is not engraved, the head stamps can reveal a lot of information, especially when more than one piece of ammunition has been used.

Firstly, the letter ‘N’ stands out. N denotes that the shell was a naval shell so we are presented with an oddity; is this naval trench art? No. Because we have a date of 31 7 99. This is just what it looks like, the 31^st of July 1899. What we have is a Mark II 6 inch BLC naval shell from the Boer war period. Both these items are the same type of shell, the other has a date of 1904. By 1915 the British army was rapidly depleting its stockpile of artillery ammunition and production could not keep up with demand. Commanders were now aware that cavalry could not achieve a breakthrough on the Western front and were convinced that they could batter the enemy aside with artillery instead. Any serviceable shell in storage was dragged out and re-used, these naval shell were converted to 8 inch howitzer shells. The red paint on our 1899 example shows that they were re stamped for use as mark VII ammunition. Clearly, although originating at different times, both these shells ended up being fired during the same action, and subsequently being made into vases during a quiet period. Unfortunately, we will never know why or by whom. But since the shell crisis had largely ended by the end of 1916 by increased production, we can guess at a date of 1915 or 1916 for the creation of the vases. It's as simple as that...

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[1] Which you can sometimes do with ease with items like this, it’s always worth trying. Take great care, of course, not to damage the item.