I've been looking for this for a while and today I opened a box and there it was, somewhere safe. Putting things somewhere safe is usually a guarantee that they cannot be found. This small brass box is actually an original, not one of the later copies, and one of 2,620,019 (approximately....) that were distributed to our overseas armed forces, injured and families of the dead starting Christmas 1914. They were paid for by public subscription, sponsored by Princess Mary.
These original boxes were airtight and some soldiers used them for many years afterwards, some packaged them up carefully and sent them home. They contained various things such as tobacco, cigarettes, chocolate, pictures of the King and Queen, etc. My sample here contains a nice little note and a bullet pencil, the tobacco, cigarettes or chocolate having been consumed a long time ago.
The bullet pencil is not a real bullet but a fascimile, which is ironic as if put on eBay it will be taken off and a terse note will explain that it must be removed as you can't sell ammunition. It doesn't matter as I'm not selling mine, I quite like it, and it's a nice example of Royalty doing good by sponsoring a good thought for our armed services. Well done Princess Mary.
The images were shot using the Pentax MX-1 compact camera, an ideal instrument for quick close up and macro photography.
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