During a recent trip to the British army dump site permission of mine, a fair few Long Lee butt plates were, once again, recovered. The tang on these butt plates are nearly always marked with unit identification letters and numbers. However, during cleaning, one was marked with something totally unexpected and caused a huge amount of excitement.
This is how they looked after an initial clean.
And then after something a little more intensive....
The tangs usually look like this...
But NOT this one !!!
After some frantic research on the internet, the descendants of Major Green were traced, and I have now spoken to his great nephew. I was pleased to find that he was as excited as I was and is soon going to be in possession of a small piece of his family's history.
QOYDIY - Queen's Own Yorkshire Dragoons Imperial Yeomanry
The history of each item I recover is so very important, and people sometimes find it hard to understand why I don't sell anything I recover. This is exactly why. Every relic recovered is a little piece of history, not something to be sold to the highest bidder. They are recovered and preserved so the history can be shared with future generations or, in this case, members of a serviceman's family.
This is how they looked after an initial clean.
And then after something a little more intensive....
The tangs usually look like this...
But NOT this one !!!
After some frantic research on the internet, the descendants of Major Green were traced, and I have now spoken to his great nephew. I was pleased to find that he was as excited as I was and is soon going to be in possession of a small piece of his family's history.
QOYDIY - Queen's Own Yorkshire Dragoons Imperial Yeomanry
The history of each item I recover is so very important, and people sometimes find it hard to understand why I don't sell anything I recover. This is exactly why. Every relic recovered is a little piece of history, not something to be sold to the highest bidder. They are recovered and preserved so the history can be shared with future generations or, in this case, members of a serviceman's family.
