Your Letters

Your comments on what you’ve been reading and doing. This month we’re discussing military gauntlets, trench weapons, cloth caps and steel helmets, and what happens at auctions.

It is worth pointing out that although the article Trench Warfare Weapons in the February 2021 issue is correct in saying that there are replica Robbins Dudley daggers, it does not point out that these would actually be illegal in the UK. The 1988 Criminal Justice Act makes it illegal to sell, or import a push dagger, unless it is an antique ie is 100 years

old. It is also worth noting that the push dagger was not the only product Robbins made, it produced a number of other knife designs during WWI.

Regarding the piece on legislation in the same issue about the new antique gun laws and making a comparison between that and knife crime it is worth pointing out that although these knife crime statistics are to be condemned, when the Home Office was asked it could produce no data that showed that certain military knives and daggers, now banned, were involved is such crime. Indeed, the overwhelming evidence shows that the weapon of choice in such instances are domestic kitchen knives. Yet collectors are now faced with their knives being illegal to own. Ron Flook by email