We Buy
Historical Items
Medals, bayonets, daggers, military maps and flight log books — militaria from the Boer War through both World Wars.
What Makes Historical Items Collectible
Militaria and historical memorabilia collecting preserves the physical record of conflicts that shaped South Africa and the world, from the Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902) through the two World Wars. South African collectors have a particularly active market around Boer War campaign medals, POW handicrafts, and the service records of South Africans who fought with British, Commonwealth and South African Union forces in WW1 and WW2. Condition, provenance, named recipients, and documented unit or battle association are the key factors that determine an item's collectible value across all these categories.
Makers & Items We Buy
Books
Militaria book collecting spans regimental and unit histories, official campaign accounts, and first-hand memoirs written by veterans of the Boer War, WW1 and WW2. Regimental histories and division/ship/air-group histories are especially sought after by specialist military book dealers, as are early or limited-print-run titles that have since gone out of print. Value is driven by rarity, edition (first editions command a premium), illustrations or maps included, and any inscriptions or provenance linking a copy to a named soldier or unit. Well-preserved leather or cloth-bound military histories from the Victorian and Edwardian era through the World Wars remain a core category for collectors and researchers alike.
Bayonets
The bayonet evolved from 17th-century muskets fitted with plug daggers into a standard-issue infantry weapon, and by WWI and WWII it was produced in huge numbers by every major combatant for close-quarter and trench fighting. Well-known WWI and WWII patterns include the German K98k, the British Pattern 1907 and No.4 Mk II, the American M1917, and the Japanese Type 30 with its distinctive hooked quillon. Ordinary-issue examples are common and affordable, while bayonets with matching scabbards, intact early features, maker and unit markings, or scarcer wartime variants can sell for several hundred dollars. German WWI/WWII bayonets and pieces with provable regimental markings tend to be the most valuable to collectors.
Daggers
Military and paramilitary daggers are among the most collected edged weapons, with Third Reich service daggers — SA, SS, Army, Luftwaffe and Kriegsmarine patterns — forming a major specialist field; the SA dagger, introduced in 1933, was produced in the millions before manufacture ceased in 1943. In a South African context, Boer War-era edged pieces are also collected, including German-made "Boer souvenir" pocket knives bearing portraits of Boer leaders, and knives handcrafted by Boer prisoners of war in camps such as Diyatalawa in Ceylon. Value depends heavily on maker, originality of fittings, condition, and documented provenance, since this category is also one of the most heavily reproduced in militaria collecting.
Dog Tags
Personal identification tags trace back to a 1899 Spanish-American War-era recommendation and became mandatory for US soldiers in 1906; the practice spread across combatant nations and tags became known as "dog tags" for their resemblance to pet identification discs. WWI-era tags were typically circular aluminium discs hand-stamped with name, rank and unit, while WWII saw the move to the oval, notched design machine-stamped with name and service number; South African forces issued their own variants, including compressed-asbestos discs used by the South African Navy. We value tags that are identifiable to a named serviceman, especially where the individual's unit, campaign or fate can be researched and documented, turning the tag into a piece of traceable personal history.
Katanas
Traditional Japanese swordsmithing dates back nearly 1,500 years, but the swords most commonly found in militaria collections today are Shin-gunto ("new military sword") officer's swords, standardised as the Type 98 pattern and issued to Imperial Japanese Army and Navy officers through WWII. Large numbers were surrendered or taken as war trophies by Allied servicemen at the end of WWII and brought home as souvenirs, which is how most examples entered Western collections. Because genuine older ancestral blades are rare and heavily faked — including fakes made during and shortly after the war specifically for souvenir-hungry troops — authentication is critical, and verified wartime military swords in good condition can be worth several thousand dollars. Fittings, blade signatures, scabbard type and overall originality are the main factors we assess.
Medals/Tokens
South Africa has a strong home-grown medal-collecting tradition centred on the Anglo-Boer War: the Queen's South Africa Medal (instituted 1900, roughly 178,000 awarded, with up to 26 campaign clasps) and the King's South Africa Medal (instituted 1902 for later service) are the two principal campaign awards, alongside WW1 and WW2 service and campaign medals awarded to South African forces. Named medals — where the recipient can be identified and researched through medal rolls — command significantly higher prices than unnamed or unattributed pieces. The category also covers military exonumia — trade and canteen tokens, POW camp tokens, and similar "Good For" pieces used in lieu of cash on bases and in camps — a broad and generally more affordable branch of militaria collecting.
Military Maps
Military maps, particularly WWI trench, artillery and officer's planning maps, form a distinct and popular collecting field; an estimated 34 million maps were printed covering the Western Front alone, at scales ranging from 1:10,000 trench maps to 1:40,000 planning maps. Many wartime-surplus maps were destroyed when returned to depots, so surviving examples — especially those tied to a specific dated action at well-known battlefields such as the Somme, Ypres, Arras or Gallipoli — are the ones collectors and institutions pursue. WWII added new collectible categories such as silk escape and evasion maps issued to aircrew. Value is driven by rarity of edition, the specific location/date depicted, and physical condition.
Ration books
Ration books were issued to civilians during WWII to control the distribution of scarce goods; in Britain, every man, woman and child received a government ration book from January 1940, containing coupons that had to be surrendered to shops for controlled items such as bacon, butter and sugar, with rationing eventually lasting until 1954. Rationing extended across the Commonwealth, including South Africa, and South African products such as tinned snoek and whale meat were at times supplied into the British rationing system as substitute proteins. Today ration books are collected as accessible pieces of everyday wartime social history, valued for completeness of coupons, condition, and the personal details recorded on the cover, which can sometimes be traced to an individual household.
Ww1 & Ww2 Flight Log books
Flight log books were the official personal record every military aircrew member was required to keep, recording each flight's date, aircraft, squadron, base, duration and type of sortie — partly because flying pay depended on proving minimum monthly hours. They are prized by collectors and researchers because a complete log book can reconstruct an airman's entire operational career, including participation in specific squadrons, campaigns or famous operations. Pilot's log books are generally more sought after than those of other aircrew, early-war service and documented combat operations significantly increase value, and log books belonging to airmen who became casualties command a further premium — including those of South African Air Force personnel who served alongside the RAF.
Historical Items Currently For Sale
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