Month: January 2026
Chip Bag With a Story
One of the enduring pleasures of Charing Cross Collectors’ Market is that it rarely delivers exactly what you expect. Not every find is a medal or a rare coin. Sometimes it is a piece of kit that feels quietly familiar, yet turns out to have a story stitched into every seam.
The British Army side cap, officially known as the khaki field service cap, can trace its origins back to 1894. Designed to be practical rather than decorative, it was worn angled on the head so as not to be knocked off by a rifle or bayonet. Its less formal nickname, “chip bag”, hints at how soldiers themselves viewed it.
An unusual feature of some examples is the unfolding construction, which allowed the cap to be pulled down slightly for a degree of weather protection (see below). While never intended as a substitute for a helmet, it was a small concession to comfort in often uncomfortable conditions.
The cap received its last major official recognition with its adoption as part of the Home Guard uniform in 1940. Period photographs show Home Guard units wearing locally appropriate regimental badges, reinforcing the strong regional identity that defined these formations.
The example shown here is particularly intriguing. It carries a General Service badge alongside two Polish buttons, and is marked by a Glasgow maker dated 1939. Taken together, these details strongly suggest issue in Scotland to a member of the Polish Free Forces who trained there during the early years of the war.
As the conflict progressed, the side cap gradually gave way to the more practical beret, and by 1947 it had largely disappeared from service, surviving only in a handful of pre-war regimental colour traditions.
You Won’t Believe Yours Either…
One of the great pleasures of the collectors’ market is its unpredictability. You might arrive hoping for a coin, a postcard, or a stamp, and leave instead with something that prompts a simple question: how on earth did this end up here?
At first glance, this modest vinyl case from the 1960s offers few clues. Finished in plain brown with a small Tak Mei logo, it looks more like a document folder than anything especially remarkable. Open it, though, and the experience changes instantly. Tilt the case forward and sixteen pairs of eyes stare straight back at you.
These are not novelty items or props, but a manufacturer’s sample box produced by Tak Mei Toys Eyeball Factory Ltd. Each pair is carefully mounted and labelled with item numbers, intended for ordering by toy makers. The designs will feel instantly familiar. They are the same weighted eyes used in dolls from the 1960s onwards, the type that close when the doll is laid down and open again when lifted.
Tak Mei began life in humble surroundings, originally operating from a flat in Hong Kong. From those beginnings, the company went on to become a major supplier of toy components, producing eyes and other parts for some of the world’s biggest toy manufacturers, including Mattel, Hasbro and MGA. Today the company employs around 1,500 people and manufactures hundreds of thousands of components each month.
This sample case is a tangible link to that early phase of production, when orders were placed by flicking through physical examples rather than scrolling a screen. Unusual, slightly unsettling, and undeniably fascinating, it is the sort of object that rewards a curious eye.
Estimated value sits in the region of £150 to £200.
From Achaea to the Thames
At first glance, these small, uneven silver coins might be easy to pass over. Yet pieces like these, struck in the late 13th century, carry the quiet weight of an age defined by travel, trade, conflict and belief. Both are high-grade silver deniers, each bearing a prominent cross on the reverse, a design so common that coins like these are often loosely grouped under the catch-all label of “Crusader coinage”.
Their condition tells part of the story. Notice the clipping around the edges, a clear sign they circulated widely and were traded for their silver value rather than cherished as objects. These were working coins, handled daily, cut down when silver was scarce, and passed from hand to hand across borders.
The coin on the left was minted in Greece under Isabella of Villehardouin, Princess of Achaea, around 1297 to 1301. Her rule belongs to the complex world of the Latin states formed after the Fourth Crusade, when Western powers carved out territories in former Byzantine lands. The coin on the right, struck in Spain during the reign of Alfonso X of Castile, dates to around 1200 and was found in the Thames, not far from Charing Cross itself, a reminder of how far medieval money could travel.
To evoke the period, a painted curved wooden panel has been included alongside the coins, showing armoured figures in motion. It is a fitting backdrop for objects that sit at the intersection of commerce, crusade and everyday medieval life.
Sticking it to the Nazis
When is a stamp not a stamp? When it was never meant to carry postage at all.
The striking designs shown here are wartime propaganda labels produced in England during the Second World War. Often mistaken for postage stamps, they were created to spread awareness of the Czechoslovak cause after the country’s occupation and the fall of France in 1940. Many Czech servicemen escaped to Britain, where they regrouped and reorganised as what later became known as the Free Czech Forces.
Dating largely from around 1942, these labels coincide with one of the most dramatic moments of the war in occupied Europe: the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich in Prague in May that year. The operation was carried out by Czech agents trained by the Special Operations Executive, and it sent a powerful signal that Czechoslovakia’s resistance was far from extinguished. (There was a superb film, Operation Daybreak, made about the event in 1975).
By this point, around 4,000 Czech military personnel were based in Britain, initially centred in Leamington Spa. These labels were affixed to everyday mail, not as valid postage, but as visual declarations of defiance. Slogans such as “Fights for Freedom”, “V for Victory”, and “Czechoslovakia – Britannia” reinforced unity and kept the Czech struggle visible on the home front.
Their bold red, white and blue designs, aircraft, flags, chains and flames, make them compelling artefacts today. Neither stamps nor ephemera in the usual sense, they sit somewhere between political messaging and graphic art, carrying the weight of a nation’s determination in a few square centimetres of paper.
As a footnote to the story, Heydrich himself was originally buried with full honours in Berlin, complete with ceremonial markers. As the war turned against Germany, these were removed and his grave left unmarked. Decades later his remains were located by looters and all of the militaria, including Himmler’s sword stolen.
BBC News article here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-50806873
A Rosette by Any Other Name
At first glance, the large silver rosette sometimes found mounted above the Mons clasp on a 1914 Star ribbon can look like an odd embellishment. In fact, it tells a very specific story about early wartime administration and how honours evolved in real time.
The Mons clasp itself was awarded to those whose service included the period between 5 August and 22 November 1914, covering the opening engagements of the war, including the fighting around Mons. Later, it was decided that a large silver rosette would be worn on the ribbon bar only, not on the full medal, to denote entitlement to the Mons clasp when the ribbon bar alone was worn on the tunic.
Originally, however, the silver rosette was intended to be a distinct award for 1914 Mons service in its own right. Service papers from the period even refer to men being “awarded the silver rosette”. This intention was later downgraded, and the rosette became purely a visual indicator of entitlement to the Mons clasp rather than a separate honour.
That administrative shift explains why some servicemen chose to wear the silver rosette directly on the medal ribbon itself, positioned above the clasp. They were, quite literally, wearing what they had been told they were awarded.
The accompanying official notice, sent out with medals, makes this transition clear, stating that the question of awarding a silver rosette was still under consideration. As with so many early First World War distinctions, the details were being finalised after the fact.
These small variations offer a fascinating glimpse into how honours were defined, revised and understood by the men who wore them.
