Lot 334

Pair WWI Trench Art Brass Shell Lamps - 1912 British George V Penny, Heaton Mint

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Lot 334
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Pair WWI Trench Art Brass Shell Lamps - 1912 British George V Penny, Heaton Mint
Pair WWI Trench Art Brass Shell Lamps - 1912 British George V Penny, Heaton Mint
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Pair WWI Trench Art Brass Shell Lamps - 1912 British George V Penny, Heaton Mint

Estimate: $500 - $750

Starting Bid: $250

(0 Bids)
by Artemis Fine Arts
June 25, 2026 9:00 AM MDT (In Progress)
Live Auction
686 S. Taylor Avenue
Suite 108
Louisville, CO, US 80027

Europe, British, WWI era, ca. 1914–1918 CE. A matched pair of trench art table lamps fashioned from spent brass artillery shell casings, their tapering columns rising from broad disc bases of mixed metal and black composite. The shells, of naval and cartridge brass, retain the soft olive patina that decades of handling lend to military alloys, with crisp rolled crimps and turned shoulders preserved at the necks where the projectiles once seated. Each lamp incorporates a 1912 British penny of King George V struck at the Heaton Mint in Birmingham, one displaying the obverse with the bare-headed bust of the monarch, the other showing the reverse with Britannia seated in armor, trident in hand, gazing across the sea. The pennies, of bronze in the standard 95-4-1 alloy of copper, tin, and zinc, were affixed during the lamps' conversion to electric service, a quiet commemorative gesture typical of the genre. Trench art emerged from the long stalemates of the Great War, soldiers and convalescents transforming the spent ordnance of industrial slaughter into domestic objects of memory, often finished after the Armistice by veterans or by craftsmen working from salvaged battlefield material. These examples, wired with early cloth-covered cord and topped with simple sockets, would have illuminated a parlor or study in the interwar years, a soldier's souvenir naturalized as furniture. Size (both about the same): 3.5" D x 8.6" H (8.9 cm D x 21.8 cm H).

Provenance: ex-private collection, Fairhaven, Massachusetts, USA, collected from 2010 to 2015

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Item # 199494

  • Condition: Fair. Remains of old label on sides of both. Peeling to protective covers on undersides of both bases. Patina throughout with nicks, abrasions, and weathering, as well as encrustations to bulb fittings and in other areas. Recommended for electrical inspection and possible rewiring before use. Untested as light fixtures due to size of bulb fittings.

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Bid Increments
From: To: Increments:
$0 $299 $25
$300 $999 $50
$1,000 $1,999 $100
$2,000 $4,999 $250
$5,000 $9,999 $500
$10,000 $19,999 $1,000
$20,000 $49,999 $2,500
$50,000 $99,999 $5,000
$100,000 $199,999 $10,000
$200,000 + $20,000