As-Left and as-found items from an old farmhouse in Provence

[Manu Della Valle]

Good afternoon everybody,
I've stop collecting a long time ago but every now and then I get a telephone call or a message from my old "contacts";this lot has been found last May/June in an old  "ferme" in Provence about to be demolished to make room for a new mansion.Nothing to write home about but something you don't find everyday nonetheless.There were more items,but they had been already put aside for a French friend and "colleague",and amongst these things there were quite a few k98 bayonets in outstanding conditions (the blades were blued but the scabbards were covered with rust,easily removed  with steel wool and WD40!) with matching numbers and frogs.Some of them had been put aside aside for me as well but even if they hadn't it would have been just the same since I couldn't have taken a single one with me anyway,because while they can be freely owned,bought,sold and swapped in France they're considered weapons in their own right in Italy and smuggling them in the Country would have you serving time if caught!I only took the frogs and left the bayonets!My friend asked me to leave them on the bayonets but since he refused to swap them for a nice WW1 showel I reluctantly left the bayos to him but uncerimoniously kept the frogs !
The P38 holster has been cleaned up with a rag because at first glance it looked as it had been given a thick layer of whitewash while in fact it was covered in mold!The SG frogs show mold in spots but that's not so serious...the whole lot will be left under the sun to dry up and later cleaned and carefully cared for!
The 1938-dated MG34/42 camoed ammo is very interesting (the empty belt wasn't inside,tho!) but I don't know  what on earth the box containing the reel of electrical cable is for ..I've found an identical one several years ago but even then I just couldn't be arsed to find info about that!Needless to say..."safety is my fivst pviovity" as a certain "Russian Hacker" would say when introducing his "life hacks" on You-Tube,therefore I carefully disengaged the safety securing the clasp but I tied a lenght of rope to the lid's hook before carefully opening it from a distance...booby-trapped thing were at the order of the day!The pictures show me "removing" decades of dirt,in factI've taken pictures of these items with caked dirt,mold,spiderwebs and all that jazz before cleaning them
There were no weapons or ammo,of course,else the guys who have found this lot would have called the Gendarmerie like they always do when they find live ammo,ornance and weapons and that's not so rare in those areas even today!I won't disclose the place,of course,but it's a couple of miles from one of the few town where the Allied encountered a rather fierce German resistance after the August 15th landings!The large farmhouse had been abandoned in the early  50' and its doors and lower windows had been bricked over to prevent people from getting in.I wasn't there when the lot had been found of course, but the guy who had found that told me that some of it was scattered in a corner of the cellar with some rotting pieces of forniture and old cardboard boxes while the bayonets were on a small working bench.It's been a stroke of luck that the scabbards in the web frogs weren't rusty because several years ago me and my friends found several MP40 magazine pouches with magazines still in place but the web had become a whole with the rusted magazine's bodies where they touched the floor and the whole lot was discarded!My French friend and I have had the chance to get into the house for a few minutes before the demolition would start for good and there was nothing inside but old forniture,a few dozens of (empty) wine bottles piled up in a room and a few beds without mattresses;all the things that could have been deemed useful had been taken away when the house was abandoned!We weren't allowed to visit the cellar because the old wooden stairs had collapsed and the insurance wouldn't have covered people not working for the demolition Firm!
That only goes to show how Italy and France are still a gold mine as far as WW2 militaria is concerned,and if you do a search for "Operation Dragoon" you'll read the names of many,many small French towns where,until the late '90s of the last Century and the first 2000s you could find tons of very interesting items at the local "Bourse aux armes and militaria",towns like Le Muy,Frejus,Le Luc,Draguignan,Aix-en-Provence,Grasse,Brignoles,Puyloubier aso.I've great,fond memories of those days and I DEEPLY regret passing on thousands of items along the years because my friends and I thought that we had more than enough,and there's no such thing as "enough WW2 German Militaria"!
Hope you enjoy
Manu

[Guest Fred Karno's Army]

Quite a read,just shows what's still around.Thanks for sharing Manu.

[Manu Della Valle]

Glad you've appreciate that!
Cheers
Manu

[Davejb]

Manu,, great finds, get some Lord Sheratons leather Balsam on those frogs and holster, they will not only clean the mould thoroughly but preserve the leather completely, and they will look like new, but I would,nt leave them out in the sun for long

[Manu Della Valle]

Hi Dave,
thank you so much for the advice mate!You cannot imagine how revolting is their smell!I've cleaned the holster as best a I could and left it and the frogs under the sun for a day trying to dry them up a bit!The frog weren't that bad,especially considering that the scabbards had superficial rust easily removed with steel wool and WD40.The leather is hardly signed by the rust and only the web frog is a bit stained but nothing serious!
The fact that the blades were still blued and that the scabbard showed only superficial,light,dusty rust and that the frogs weren't' covered with a heavy coat of mold like it was the case with the holster would lead me to think that the room had been damp for a short,recent period!
On the other hand the steel fittings of the ammo box are heavily rusted;I think it all depends on how the leather and metal had been treated in the first place!
I'll post a picture taken after we had cleaned the bayonets to show you hoe remarkable theyr conditions were.
Cheers
Manu
 

[Davejb]

If you look at the ammo pouches that Steve T found buried , then look at the finished results when Lord Sheratons Balsam was applied, you will see how much they came up to nearly new condition. It also feeds the leather which will help to keep it supple and not dry out and crack...So many people use it on old or new leather to preserve it .. I,ve used it for years on Leather helmet liners and it has kept them supple and stopped cracking or rotting, and it does,nt alter the colour, it also prevents dampness seeping in

[Manu Della Valle]

I'm gonna order some soon, Dave!The holster turned out ok after a good rubbing with a towel which entirely removed the white mold,quite similar to white blight,ditto for the patina of mold on the frogs that prevented to some extent the leather from being stained more heavily (it doesn't show but some rust traces are still there!),yet the frogs retain some white spots that are hard to remove with a towel alone!What would you suggest?As incredible as it may sound this is one of the rare times I've found leather goods with mold stubbornly embedded in it.I've found that on boots and shoes but they're just about the only things I try to restore as professionaly as I can bringing them back to their original state!
The mold is relatively fresh,in fact the scabbards weren't either "glued" to the leather nor heavily rusted (see pictures of them after a not so heavy rubbing with #0000 steel wool and WD40) but those damn spots are stubborn and hard to remove!
as you can see there are some areas of heavier rust on the lower part of some scabbards but if you look at the blades you'll agree that they're in incredibly good conditions!They were stuck into the scabbards and at first we thought that it was due to the rust while in fact it was dried-up oil or grease!Unfortunaly I have deleted the pictures showing the maker's codes and names....no biggie given the fact that they stayed right there!
Incidentally it was the part of the scabbards most "marred" by the rust being directly in contact with the leather!
One thing is for sure,they're seven small items yet the mustiness inside the trunk was unbelevable and they still smell terribly!
Cheers
Manu

Edited September 17, 2016 by Manu Della Valle

[Davejb]

Sheratons is a leather cleaner and should remove the mould spots, you might need to apply it a couple of times, but it should come off

[Davejb]

Leather will absorb water and remain in the fibres until fully dry , I presume thats why the rust had accumulated where the frogs met the metal

[Manu Della Valle]

Absolutely!Thankfully the dampness  must have been quite recent due to some leaks somewhere and that's why it hasn't heavily damaged the metal AND the frogs.I'll deffo give that product a try,Dave,because I've started unearthing stuff from my garage and even if the leatherware was stored in plastic hard suitcases and cardboxes sealed with tape I've found a lot of stuff covered with just about the same mold,albeit less smelly and stubborn!

[Manu Della Valle]

Anyway...people find camo helmets...I find camo boxes!

[Davejb]

All I find is Cammo-mile tea bags, so your lucky!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Manu Della Valle]