Relic Long Lee butt plate returned to family

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During a recent trip to the British army dump site permission of mine, a fair few Long Lee butt plates were, once again, recovered. The tang on these butt plates are nearly always marked with unit identification letters and numbers. However, during cleaning, one was marked with something totally unexpected and caused a huge amount of excitement.

This is how they looked after an initial clean.





And then after something a little more intensive....





The tangs usually look like this...







But NOT this one !!!




After some frantic research on the internet, the descendants of Major Green were traced, and I have now spoken to his great nephew. I was pleased to find that he was as excited as I was and is soon going to be in possession of a small piece of his family's history.

QOYDIY - Queen's Own Yorkshire Dragoons Imperial Yeomanry

The history of each item I recover is so very important, and people sometimes find it hard to understand why I don't sell anything I recover. This is exactly why. Every relic recovered is a little piece of history, not something to be sold to the highest bidder. They are recovered and preserved so the history can be shared with future generations or, in this case, members of a serviceman's family.
 
Presumably it came off a volunteer pattern Long Lee that the Major owned. Hard to imagine why/how it ended up in a dump. Thats good engraving, Major Green likely paid a fair penny to have it done.
 
Very good work, sir. Thank you for going to the effort to track down the family. Were you able to learn anything about Major Green and his service?
 
The Maj. probably bought himself a private purchase rifle or carbine for his service in the Boer War, if any. Or he may have come back from South Africa with a new interest in rifle shooting; many did! The rifle might have been donated or requisitioned for training use in WWI and never recovered. Or if it was stored in a Yeomanry regiment armoury it could very easily get lumped in with the rest and disappear, especially if the Major was in France at the time, or already dead or wounded.
 
Nice find and very kind of you to return it to the family. I would be thrilled to receive something like that from a relative, no matter if it's just the butt plate, very exciting!

-Steve
 
how did you clean them? looks like you didn't take a drill and wire brush to get the crud off? thanks
 
Sorry to disappoint gregc, but I did :)

Step 1 - Smack with a hammer to remove all big chunks of rust

Step 2 - Scrub with stiff wire brush to remove as much mud and leftover loose rust as possible

Step 3 - Soak in a 10-20% solution of citric acid, using very hot water, for at least 12 hours

Step 4 - Remove from citric acid, rinse, dunk in strong sodium bicarb solution to neutralise any left over acid

Step 5 - Dry

Step 6 - Whizz a wire brush attachment on an electric pillar drill all over the item

Step 7 - Take photos as they now look awesome.
 
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