Napoleonic militaria for sale
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Guides for these pieces
- The Legion of Honour: recognising the grade, dating the cross, tracing the holderKnight, officer, commander; Empire, monarchy or Republic: how to date a Legion of Honour cross, trace its holder and place its value.
- Spotting a reproduction or a fake: the seven-point methodAn aged reproduction fools the eye, not the method. Seven concrete checks to tell a period piece from a copy before you buy.
- Valuing a military item: the method, from identification to priceMedal, helmet, uniform, bayonet, papers: how to find the real value of a military item, where to look up prices, and which traps to avoid.
Collecting Revolutionary and First Empire militaria
For the collector, the period opens with the wars of the Revolution in 1792 and closes at Waterloo. The armies of the Republic, the Consulate and then the Empire follow one another without any material break: the model 1777 musket, corrected in Year IX, arms them all, and the same factories equip them from one regime to the next.
More than two centuries separate today's collector from these campaigns. That is the fact that governs everything else. With a piece from this period, the question is never whether it is beautiful, but whether it has come through two hundred years, a souvenir industry born as early as the nineteenth century, and the centenary commemorations. Rarity is real here, prices follow, and so do forgeries.
What has survived
Time has sorted the materials. Metal and paper survive, textiles far more rarely: the great uniform ensembles are held in public collections, and genuine items of clothing appear only in small numbers, with a few specialist dealers and at public auction, at high prices. What commonly circulates under that name is most often reproduction made for re-enactment. What you actually meet are edged weapons, firearms, regimental buttons, shako plates, decorations and, above all, documents: discharge papers, service records, award certificates, soldiers' letters.
Reading a piece, establishing a provenance
French edged weapons of the period frequently carry, on the back of the blade, the name of the factory that made them. Klingenthal, in Alsace, and Versailles are the two names met most often. These markings, the shape of the blade and the mounting of the hilt cross-check one another: it is the whole that authenticates a piece, never a single clue.
For this period more than any other, provenance is worth as much as the object. A piece that comes with its history, an old invoice or a documented auction appearance can be defended; the same piece with nothing is argued over endlessly. Paper remains the most accessible and least risky way in. Our advice on spotting fake militaria applies here with particular force, and caring for leather, textile and metal becomes a conservation question in its own right.