Boer War - P.O.W. Art.

[Mervyn Mitton]

During the Boer War - 1899-1902 - we captured many Boer Commando and regular troops.
To keep them under guard within South Africa would have tied-up too many troops - and the
decision was made to send them to overseas camps within British territories.

The Countries involved were - St. Helena ; Bermuda ; Ceylon and India.

The prisoners were allowed to make use of local materials to carve items of jewellery, furniture - and also
metal items. The most common material that they had were the Boer Coins in their pockets.

These were used in many different ways and some beautiful objects were made from melted silver.

This is a brooch - fused together into this shape and with a pin on the back. The main coin is a 2/6
- two shillings and sixpence - dated 1895. The flanking ones look like shillings (1/-) but the date and
value have been covered with the rather clumsy soldering.

This set of coins ran from 1892 to 1898 and were minted in Pretoria. They had 3d ; 6d ; 1/- ; 2/- ; 2/6d
and a five shilling piece. In gold they had the Pond - which was the same size as a Sovereign.

CLICK TO ENLARGE PICTURE

[Mervyn Mitton]

Reverse - the smaller coins could be 6d or, 1/-

CLICK TO ENLARGE

[Anthony Govender]

Pow items are very collectable. Will try and upload some from my collection

Regards

Anthony

Edited September 7, 2012 by Anthony Govender

[Anthony Govender]

Hello Everyone

Here is one piece that's special in my collection. Mary must have been quite a girl. The love demonstrated in the work done by the POW prisoner on this coin shows how much Mary meant to him. He must have also been quite an artist. This a ZAR (South Africa) Two and Half Shillings coin dated 1896. A truly superb piece.

Regards

Anthony Govender

[Mervyn Mitton]

Anthony - welcome to GMIC.

This is a very fine example of a POW carved coin - probably one of the best I have seen.

Somewhere, there is a further post where I showed the booklet from the Jo'burg collector.

Useful for different styles of working.

I have noticed quite a few later copies of these coming onto the market - buyers must

look carefully . Mervyn

[Anthony Govender]

Hi Mervyn

Thank you. I have a copy of the book. It is by Ray Leppans from JHB. It covers items of POW interest from his personal collection.

I will try and upload others from my collection. Some quite interesting ones.

Regards

Anthony

[Mervyn Mitton]

Anthony - I shall also look forward to seeing some of your splendid medals on the British section. Mervyn

ps - modern SA medals (post 1945) go on the South African section of the British Forums.

[Anthony Govender]

As promised, here are a few examples from my collection. The coin are a Burgers Pond (Extremely Rare) and a ZAR 1898 Pond. Attached is a genuine diamond.

Of all the coin jewellery, this is the best I have seen

Regards

Anthony Govender

Edited January 4, 2013 by Anthony Govender

[Anthony Govender]

More

[Anthony Govender]

Some more P.O.W art

Anthony Govender

[Anthony Govender]

Last batch for now..... Will upload some other later

Anthony Govender

Edited January 4, 2013 by Anthony Govender

[Laurence Strong]

Interesting items Mervyn and Anthony. It's interesting to see what bored minds will come up with....

Larry

Edited January 4, 2013 by Laurence Strong

[QSAMIKE]

Why POW art could it not also be called trench art?????

Here are a few items from my collection....

Mike

[Mervyn Mitton]

Really Mike - I'm surprised at your question - the Boers never had time to do Trench Art - too busy shooting Brits..

They did have the time as POW's when we sent them to India, Ceylon, St. Helena and Bermuda.....................

Some very nice examples in your collection - I suppose, like coins, they had them with them and were able to make the carvings. Mervyn