This is an ash-tray from the Serbian Military Technical Institute in the town of Kragujevac. It is in the shape of the bi-cephalic Serbian heraldic eagle with, in the centre, the royal cypher of the now-defunct Obrenovic Serbian royal dynasty. Above the centre, it reads, in Serbian Cyrillic: ‘КРАЉ. ϹРП. ВОЈНО ТЕХН. ЗАВОД У КРАГУЈЕВЦУ’, which transliterates as ‘KRALJ. SRP. VOJNO TEHN. ZAVOD U KRAGUJEVCY’, and which translates to ‘Kingdom of Serbia Military Technical Institute in Kragujevac’. Beneath this is, again in Cyrillic: ’13 ФЕБ. 1889’, which transliterates as ’13 FEB. 1889’, and which translates to ’13 February 1889’. This was from around the time that King Milan I abdicated the Serbian throne in favour of his son, Alexander I who, as a minor, was at this time under the regency of his mother. Serbia manufactured it’s first artillery cannons in the cannon foundry in Kragujevac in 1856. The Kragujevac Military Technical Institute was Serbia’s only arsenal, first producing ammunition from 1884, with there being a gunpowder factories at Stragar and Obilic, complimenting the manufacture of ammunition at Kragujevac, the latter producing nitrocellulose-based smokeless powder. Serbia’s army was equipped with 90,000 modern - at the time - Mauser M1899 rifles, delivered by 1900. Serbia ordered tens of millions of rounds of ammunition for these rifles from Belgium and, with a view to further develop self-sufficiency, the Obilic gunpowder factory was constructed and the Kragujevac Military Technical Institute installed machinery for manufacturing 7MM ammunition for these modern Mausers. Further, large acquisitions of rifles and ammunition from other countries would continue, in order to further equip the Serbian army, but the Kragujevac Military Technical Institute could manage a daily production run of 100,000 rounds of 7MM cartridges. Some 43,000, 7MM calibre rifle barrels were acquired from the Steyr firm in Austria in order to enable older, virtually obsolete, Serbian Mauser-Koka 10.15MM calibre rifles to be converted from the single-shot system to rapid-fire, 7MM calibre rifles at the Kragujevac Military Technical Institute. These were intended for use by second-line troops. Further to this, at peak production, it also daily manufactured somewhere between 800-1000 hand grenades. By 1910, the Military Technical Institute installed machinery for the production of 75MM artillery shells for the 188 pieces of French-made Schneider rapid-fire cannons. Over 20,000 artillery shells were manufactured in the first year of production, though, by the time of the First Balkan War of 1912, some 374,000 shells had been manufactured. Following the two Balkan Wars, in 1912 and 1913, much of the infantry and artillery ammunition has been depleted and, by the time of the Battle of Kolubara in late 1914, the Serbian army’s ammunition stocks were at an extremely critical level, but still demonstrated the importance of nations investing in relevant and useful self-defense projects. Also shown with the ash-tray is a Serbian model M1889 army officer's badge, which came out at the time that the ash-tray was made and is therefore contemporaneous with the ash-tray. By the time of the First World War, the officer's badges from 1889 and then had some similarities in size, the oval shape, the current King's royal cypher, though the 1889 badge has just two colours in enamel, the red and blue, whereas by the First World War, the badge that was used had the full national Serbian colours in enamel of red, blue, and white. Showing the badge and ash-tray together gives an idea of the scale. The Kragujevac ash-tray has seen royal dynasties come and go, Kings come and go, numerous wars and border changes, developments in weapon technologies and manufacture, but it is still a durable and functional ash-tray that has outlasted many of the items produced at the Kragujevac Military Technical Institute!
Ash-tray from Serbian arsenal Serbian model M1889 officer's cap badge