Light's out, you maggots!

There was a time not long ago when you weren't an American unless you made otherwise useless items into lamps. I hear this tradition is still popular in parts of the South. Anyway, here it is, in all of its glory - the Trench Art lamp:

It's probably of WW2 or Korean War vintage - it's made from an old style mess kit (all metal) including the knife, fork, and spoon, old-style canteen (I think they went plastic by Vietnam), and an old style helmet liner. The power cord is delightfully non-modern and probably hazardous.

I put a black light bulb in there for those times when I need to add that certain ambiance to Flintlock's Arsenal.

Speaking of which, one of these posts I'm going to post a panoramic video of Flintlock's Arsenal, so you can see all of my goodies in situ.

You're da bomb!

And so is this:

This is a 50 lb. practice bomb that has had the nose perforated with military escutcheon-shaped cut-outs and cigar rests to form - what else? - an ashtray. A big ashtray. We can tell it was a practice bomb because of the sky-blue paint peeking through the later decorative layers. No danger of "ert" here.

We can tell it's an ashtray because...well, just look at it, dummy. I have in fact used this piece as an ashtray, as I've had it since college. You can only imagine the myriad goodies I've emptied from it in it's day. Hardly military at all, you might imagine. Now my kid likes to put random things in there, which is why when all of my guitar picks went missing, this was the first place I looked. There they were, nestled in amongst the dust bunnies, dead batteries, and cellophane candy wrappers...

A divergance...

As you may know, I initially intended this blog as a one per day/365 day posting of my personal collection of old, interesting, or unusual weapons or weapon-like items.

Explicit in this aim is that I actually own 365 old, interesting, or unusual weapons or weapon-like items. Ah....no.

Implicit in this aim is that I'm either an idiot or incapable of not only counting, but even estimating, what I had in my armory.

But I want to do the one year thing. The missus insists (probably for cash flow reasons) that I not go on an acquisition bender, so I'm going to broaden scope somewhat to include old, interesting, or unusual militaria and other related artifacts.

To this end, I would like to introduce you to Trench Art. One fact of military life is that when not actually training or fighting, soldiers' lives could sometimes be impossibly dull. This fact coupled with access to unorthodox military ephemera and tools leads to Trench Art - the re-appropriation of military "stuff" for artistic purposes. This kind of stuff decorates the studies and dens of veterans everywhere.

To this end, here are a couple of planters made from the shells of 75 mm (7.5 cm) artillery shells.



They are pre-WW1 in manufacture, but may have been fired during the Great War. The base of one is stamped "POLTE MAGDEBURG VIII 1909" with various other armorers' touch marks (stamped 2 digit numbers). Polte was a German munitions manufacturer and Magdeburg was the town in which this particular factory was located. 1909 was the date of manufacture

The other is stamped "PATRONENFABRIK KARLSRUHE IX 1914"with similar touch marks. Again, Patronenfabrik was the manufacturer, Karlsruhe was the town, and 1914 was the date.

The only embellishments to these pieces comprise the riveted on lion's heads and rings - probably scavenged drawer or door pulls and a generous application of gold paint. Sometimes, these flank the door to Flintlock's Arsenal when I can manage to keep two plants alive long enough to put in them. Now is not such a time.