This trench art is made from a shell from a French 75 field gun. I measured it to ascertain this, and it is French. The manufacture stamp is for July 1917. I bought it about four of five years ago in a museum in Albert, France, which is a few kilometres from the site of the Battle of the Somme. My own uncle was killed in October, 1916 at the Somme. He fought with the Roual Irish Fusilliers. || Trench art - French shell casing || || Memorabilia || 46.227638,2.213749000000007 || France || Trench art made from a shell casing from a French 75 field gun with a manufacture stamp of July 1917 || || France || Memorabilia || Trench art made from a shell casing from a French 75 field gun with a manufacture stamp of July 1917 || 46.227638,2.213749000000007

French inkwell || A French-made trench art inkwell from the Salonika Front. This inkwell is made from part of a shell casing, which has been cut and stamped decoratively. On the top, in French, is the text 'Campagne 1914 1915 1916 1917 1918', and the text 'Souvenir D'Orient' is toward the bottom. At the front are the owner's initials and at the top opening to the inkwell, for inserting an ink pen, is a Serbian coin, which has been attached so that it can be pivoted open when required and can be closed at other times.

This is a 3 piece set of Serbian trench art made of aluminium and consists of a matchbox holder, a cigarette case, and a small cup. One side of the matchbox holder has the Serbian text 'СОЛУН-БИТОЉ, 1918', which transliterates to 'SOLUN - BITOLJ, 1918', and correspond, respectively to the towns of Salonika in Greece and Bitola in Macedonia, which was a province of Serbia at the time; on the spine of the matchbox holder is the Serbian text 'СПОМЕН', which transliterates to 'SPOMEN', which means 'souvenir' in English; on the other face of the matchbox holder are the inter-twined Serbian Cyrillic initials of 'Ф' and 'J', which stand for 'F' and 'J' respectively and which may have been the initials of the original owner. The front of the cigarette case has a banner with, above it, the Serbian Cyrillic text 'МОНАСТИР 1914 1918', which transliterates to 'MONASTIR 1914 1918', and Monastir was the former name of the afore-mentioned town of Bitola. Beneath the banner is the Serbian text 'ЖИВЕЛА ЈУГОСЛАВИЈА', which transliterates to 'ZIVELA JUGOSLAVIJA' and translates into English as 'LONG LIVE YUGOSLAVIA'. The cup features a Serbian heraldic bi-cephalic eagle with the year '1914' to the left and '1918' to the right with, above the eagle, the Latinised word 'SRBIJA' and, on the back, the name of the town of Monastir. Of note is that the two words on this cup are Latin Serbian rather than Cyrillic Serbian text. || Trench art matchbox holder, cigarette case, and small cup.