A Scottish regimental officers’ dirk of the Argyll & Sutherland Highlanders sold for $3100 (£2600) at C&T’s first US branded auction in November.
The office and storage centre is based in the town of Manheim, Lancaster County, Pennsylvania. It is run by Brian Maederer, who has been in the militaria business for over 40 years.
Matthew Tredwen, C&T director, arms, armour and militaria, said: “Currently all aspects of the live auction format are taking place in the UK, using our UK team, with all shipping and payments going through the US set-up. However, we hope to expand on the success of the first solely US based auction we had in November and will look to start recruiting a team in the future to possibly conduct everything from the US base.”
He added that the main reason for setting up in the US was its potentially rich pool of consignments.
“After the initial Allied landings in Normandy in 1944 and also the landings in Italy, the American troops were famous for souvenir hunting. They shipped back a lot of ‘War Booty’ and also various European antiques etc.
“As a result of this the market for militaria in the US is huge; some of the largest collections from both world wars are housed in the US. Once we have the US-based operation running smoothly, we will then push for other areas of collectables.”
Tredwen said C&T is hoping to bring to US vendors “the chance to expose their lots to a worldwide audience”.
“The benef it for our European clients is that we hope to be able to offer them a larger selection of items and many of which have remained in large collections over the years. Some were acquired directly from the veterans who brought the items back after 1945,” he added.
“Also in the US, for militaria, it is very much overshadowed by firearms. As such you find most auctions are firearms auctions with militaria at the end. We want to put militaria first and promote this as a strong category on its own.”
C&T was launched in Ashford in October 2013 by dealers Tredwen and Glen Chapman, experts in militaria and toys respectively.
Expanding into other selling disciplines, the firm is now based in the village of Kenardington.
The next C&T US militaria auction is on April 5.
