Is selling Somme Relics legal?

[PoW1988]

When I go to the Western Front next year I wont be taking any relics from battlefields myself. I am a person who likes to leave things as they are, so other people can enjoy it. To me it's a mark of respect to the fallen, I wouldnt touch anything because, I am using quite a harsh word here, but I see it as "graverobbing" in a sense, not that I am calling any of you graverobbers, so don't even try to insinuate that. I think photos are fine though, a picture can speak a 1000 words!

Thats my tuppence worth!

Lynz

[Garron]

"graverobbing"

you may not be calling anyone it, but its still a harsh and possible offensive way of airing you views on it.

Gaz

[PBI]

WW1 Relics,well as i have said before,they dont possess any Mystical Powers or are they Holy Relics,they are simply the Material Relics of Modern Warfare.If you pick them up or leave them in Situ is entirley up to the Individual.How can picking up a spent Cartridge Case or a Shrapnel Ball be construed as being Disrespectful to the DEAD ?,please enlighten Me ?

This Pile of Spent and Live Cartridges come from my Friends Mothers Garden at Spanbroekmolen,She is 89,but i dont consider her a Grave Robber.I think the Phrase "Rose tinted Spectacles" comes to Mind.It might also interest you to know that there are still an estimated 12,000,000 MillionTons of UX Ordinance left on the Western Front,is it sacriligeous of the French and Belgian Bomb Disposal Teams to Destroy this lethal Kit,or should it be Left for other People to Enjoy..?????.Does this in turn make the Various Museums in France and Belgium that exhibit WW1 Relics Grave Robbers?.D,Oh

[PBI]

[Garron]

I am staying well out of this relics = evil debate, I have had my say on other threads about it,

I collect dug items and other bits (non dug), don't like it, don't let the door hit ya on the way out.

I am not bothered either way. (may been a little offensive in the wording) but I just have had enough of this debate and cannot see how it can benefit in forum in anyway when all its doing is dividing us, when we all have a common purpose here. Theres nothing wrong with a healthy debate but this just turns into a brawl and neither side can agree on anything. Its like a battle of attrition, who can grind down the other first.

And saying about lost family and how a waterbottle a collector owns could be thiers, If i own it, fear not its in good hands, someone who will respect the items who what they are a reminded of a conflict that shaped the world and not put them on ebay to make a quick couple of quid.

Anyway, What I woudn't give for 10 minutes scrounging in those buckets. Like christmas easter and my birthday all rolled into one for me.

Gaz

[PBI]

You Should See the Cellar Gaz !!!!!!!..........

[Max]

I am staying well out of this relics = evil debate, I have had my say on other threads about it,

I collect dug items and other bits (non dug), don't like it, don't let the door hit ya on the way out.

Picking stuff up off of the surface is one thing, actually digging for items is another. Digging where bodies could still be in situ is tantamount to grave robbery by any definition, whether you like it or not. Just because there are no grave markers does not mean that the last resting places of the lost and "glorious" dead should not be respected. Digging for items in a cemetery would not be tolerated either in France/Belgium or this country, and would rightly cause outrage on this forum, I don't see the activities of field monkeys with spades as being any different.

[nige]

"graverobbing", only if you remove things of an identifiable nature, (identiifable to a fallen soldier) or worse still, any form of human remains. This last to me is quite unbelievable.

Anyone who picks up or purchases live ammo or anything of that nature is a fool and of course private property must always be respected

Coming from Aussie, I don't get to France and Flanders all that often but would have no problem in picking up the odd cartridge case or shrapnel ball, although draw the line at digging. You also have to be very careful about bringing these sort of things back through Asian countries, as I found to my grief in Singapore. A souvenir 303 bullet purchased at the Artillery Museum in London cost me a night in the local lockup plus a lecture the following afternoon. This, after I was told they knew it was a dummy souvenir bullet. Just as well they didn't find the mills bomb my wife was carrying in her cabin luggage that I had purchased at Hill 62.

Just my 2 bobs worth.

Nige

[Greyhound]

Coming out of a seldom-visited cemetery, we found a French farmer waiting by the car. He produced a brass buckle which he had obviously spent some time restoring and polishing (he showed us an identical one, rusted and pitted). He had found them in one of his fields. It was from an English soldier, he said, and he had been waiting to find an English person to give it back to. We found this a very touching gesture.

[PBI]

Similar thing Happened to Me and my Dad,years ago,whilst having a Beer in Longueval,the landlord of the Bar Dissapeared for a few Minutes,and came back with a Tray bearing a Collection of Various British Army Buttons and a few cap badges which He insisted that we Accept,He explained that some of His regulars bought them in to Him,and he wanted us to have them.

[Garron]

You Should See the Cellar Gaz

theres more?

I think I may have found my new religion, and thats my church

Gaz

[PBI]

Most of the Locals up at Spanbroekmolen seem to have a lot of Stuff in their Gardens and cellars,most of it is Simply unearthed at Ploughing Time or when further Building work Takes place in the Farm itself.

[Guest Pte.Evans]

When I go to the Western Front next year I wont be taking any relics from battlefields myself. I am a person who likes to leave things as they are, so other people can enjoy it. To me it's a mark of respect to the fallen, I wouldnt touch anything because, I am using quite a harsh word here, but I see it as "graverobbing" in a sense, not that I am calling any of you graverobbers, so don't even try to insinuate that. I think photos are fine though, a picture can speak a 1000 words!

Thats my tuppence worth!

Lynz

really know how to win friends and influence people with harsh statements like this

evans

[Max]

really know how to win friends and influence people with harsh statements like this

evans

Hello Private Evans

Quite a first post do I need to say welcome to the forum?

Andy

[willy]

Max, it's not the digging that could cause a problem, its what happens when soldiers remains are found, and then the whole process takes a very different turn if anything is removed and the remains are not reported.

If there was no digging, then a lot of lost souls would still be lost.

There is no doubt an awful amount, of undiscovered, identifiable remains, are still awaiting recovery, without digging thats where they stay, I say again, it's what happens when a button, a buckle, a cap badge leads to remains that is important.

The last resting place of many many dead is cultivated farmland, are you suggesting then that this should be left untouched too?

[staffsreg]

Hello Private Evans

Quite a first post do I need to say welcome to the forum?

Andy

You wouldn't have it any other way Andy would you?

He's telling us his thoughts on a statement....

I'll be the second to welcome Pte. Evans to our Forum then

Regards,

Ivan

[PBI]

[Guest KevinEndon]

he could of got thirty quid on ebay for that

[Gunner Bailey]

Picking stuff up off of the surface is one thing, actually digging for items is another. Digging where bodies could still be in situ is tantamount to grave robbery by any definition, whether you like it or not. Just because there are no grave markers does not mean that the last resting places of the lost and "glorious" dead should not be respected. Digging for items in a cemetery would not be tolerated either in France/Belgium or this country, and would rightly cause outrage on this forum, I don't see the activities of field monkeys with spades as being any different.

Max

Where does this statement place respected groups like De Diggers and No Mans Land?

Gunner Bailey

[Max]

GB

It has to be obvious to even the most casual observer that there is a complete gulf between the work that De Diggers do, and the antics of battlefield scavengers, I would never call Frans or the rest of the crew field monkeys. I do have a small problem with the work of No Mans Land only in that their work seems to be carried out with the sole intention of making entertaining TV shows (I obviously stand to be corrected and apologise unreservedly if this is not the case....however what can't be forgiven is the inclusion of Andy "give me a uniform" Robertshaw ). My slight disquiet about No Mans Land came about when they did a prog about Loos, specifically the Hohenzollern redoubt. They found several Germans who were largely intact, and in fact managed (I think) to identify one for which they should be congratulated. They also found fragments of a British soldier on roughly the exact spot where battalion reports state my great grandfather and several of his comrades were KiA on 1st Oct 1915, their bodies never being recovered. I just had an awful thought that the boot with the foot in situ could actually be my GGrandads and that being lowered into a plastic bag was a much much worse fate than being left where he was. The irony of course is that during a break in the dig at Loos "collectors" actually gained access to the site and took items from the bodies which may well have helped identify the remains....i'm sure that no one on this site would countenance such behaviour.

In short, De Diggers and groups like No Mans Land are generally officially recognised and sanctioned, work in a structured and planned manner and we can fully expect that articles recovered during a dig are treated properly and do not end up in someones private collection, or worse being traded on e-bay.

I don't buy the public service angle either as expounded by Willy.

Andy

[Gunner Bailey]

Andy

I'm glad you see a distinction. I made the point because I felt your statement was just too black and white. There are always shades of grey in any arguement.

The people who invaded the No Mans Land dig at Loos should not be called collectors, for I'm sure anything they found has not been collected but sold. They were thieves, opportunists and looters, but not collectors.

I'll let Mr Robertshaw answer for himself if he sees this thread.

Gunner Bailey

[Martin Brown]

Max and all

As a founder of No Man's Land I can categorically say that we do not only exist to do television programmes. A quick look at the project list on our website will give you an idea of the range of projects undertaken that have nothing to do with the media. What I will say is that programmes like Fallen allow us to carry our research work on with adequate funding as money from TV gets ploughed into other projects.

In respect of Loos we actually told the TV people we wanted to do that site in order to get information about it. Readers may recall the furore surrounding landfill operations at the site and our work was designed to provide information to the French authorities, who don't have many Great War specialists in their archaeological service, and to our own All Party Parliamentary Battlefueld Heritage and War Graves group. The site was under threat. Our work helped resolve the issue and the TV funded it and made a very respectable and respectful TV programme at the same time. End of story. Except to say to Max that the treatment of the remains was standard for any archaeological/forensic recovery and surely that, as a step in a process to effective reburial, is acceptable. It's got to be better than being scooped out by machine and taken away in a skip, which is what could have happened.

Andy is a friend and the level of vitriol he attracts on this forum from time to time is remarkable and "surprising". Andy believes, rightly in my view, that the recreation aspect of all this helps the non-specialist (i.e. people who are not members of this forum) get a better idea of what this is all about. Mostly this works, sometimes it doesn't and in my opinion on Fallen/Trench Detectives it wasn't entirely succesful but the TV felt it would work. I would ask whether critics are fetishizing the Great War - would it be okay to do the same sort of thing for Romans or the Seven Years War or the Boxer Rebellion?

[Martin Brown]

The people who invaded the No Mans Land dig at Loos should not be called collectors, for I'm sure anything they found has not been collected but sold. They were thieves, opportunists and looters, but not collectors.

Gunner Bailey

It was theft, pure and simple. In hindsight we should have been more careful given the area we were working in, where there are serious social problems following the collapse of the coal industry. This is, of course, not confined to WW1 sites - most archaeologists have had sites raided and we know it's a criminal core who use metal detectors as a tool. They have nothing in common with the hobby detectors, many of whom enjoy working alongside archaeologists.

[Max]

Andy is a friend and the level of vitriol he attracts on this forum from time to time is remarkable and "surprising". Andy believes, rightly in my view, that the recreation aspect of all this helps the non-specialist (i.e. people who are not members of this forum) get a better idea of what this is all about. Mostly this works, sometimes it doesn't and in my opinion on Fallen/Trench Detectives it wasn't entirely succesful but the TV felt it would work. I would ask whether critics are fetishizing the Great War - would it be okay to do the same sort of thing for Romans or the Seven Years War or the Boxer Rebellion?

Hello Martin

Thank you very much for your clarification , your comments are most welcome and I do apologise if I have inferred that your work is anything other than professional, that certainly was not my intention.

How much of the British soldier did you eventually recover? I ask because we could have a perverse situation here where the mans foot is buried in a cemetery close by whilst the rest of his fragmented body could still be laying in front of the redoubt....this can't be a very satisfactory outcome.

As for Mr Robertshaw. I do regularly criticise Mr R for dressing up, and maintain that, to me at least, it can be very distracting. I don't object to the dressing up per se, although its not my cup of tea, its just the manner and setting in which it is done. Mr Robertshaw seems to want to jump into uniform at any and every opportunity...this can be exceptionally annoying.

Best regards

Andy

[Martin Brown]

Hello Martin

Thank you very much for your clarification , your comments are most welcome and I do apologise if I have inferred that your work is anything other than professional, that certainly was not my intention.

How much of the British soldier did you eventually recover? I ask because we could have a perverse situation here where the mans foot is buried in a cemetery close by whilst the rest of his fragmented body could still be laying in front of the redoubt....this can't be a very satisfactory outcome.

Best regards

Andy

Hi Andy

No offence taken, I just wanted to clarify things.

As I recall there was about half a body and we recovered all of him. It looked like he had been ripped by shell fire and mercifully death would have been instantaneous.

Your question raises a wider point. I am not sure how much constitutes a "body" as far as CWGC are concerned. Everything gets buried but I don't know how much there has to be to get the full treatment, as it were. I must ask them!

Best

Martin