A simple, yet evocative item. This is a 1916 dated British officer’s trench whistle. I deliberately looked for a 1916 date because the centenary of the Battle of the Somme passed this month. The whistle was manufactured by D’Courcy & Co from Birmingham.
Lancashire Fusiliers go “over the top”, first day of the Somme, July 1st 1916.
This is the standard Hitler Youth fringed banner used on the long fanfare trumpet. I have been looking for a reasonably priced one of these for years now and got this from a guy in Belgium.
If you watch films of Nazi Party rallies (really, who does that?) then you have seen a ton of these. I hooked this one from a guy in Poland. The trumpet is, like most musical instruments, difficult to date. However the way it is made is consistent with “1930’s and 40’s German style” manufacture. Most of these trumpets are either unadorned or they have the HJ flying eagle embossed or pressed into them. In this example, the badge is silver soldered I think and is very similar to the Gauseiger sports badges. The question is why is a Gauseiger eagle adorning a fanfare trumpet? The badge appears to be of a similar age to the trumpet so I don’t think you can just shriek fake. The mouthpiece is by Amati, which is a Czech manufacturer and is definitely post-war as this combine did not start until 1945. So I’d say probably a pimped up post war trumpet but who the frak knows. I got it at basement cost purely to hang a banner from so it doesn’t matter to me.
Kiwi Medals 