Hundreds of Second World War military items up for auction

The items were found during a house clearance and David Montgomery, of The Guernsey Auction House, said the sheer quantity was unexpected.

‘It was definitely a surprise,’ he said. ‘The volume was a little bit unexpected, to say the least.’

Among the collection were a lot of old helmets, mostly German, but also Italian, British and one Japanese. Mr Montgomery thinks that one of these is likely to do particularly well and at the time of writing the Japanese helmet had a bid of £310.

Several islanders with an interest in military history had been to take a look and some of the items on sale had surprised even them, such as small bottles for decontamination ointment that were used by German soldiers.

‘Some of the collectors were a bit confused about some of the items,’ he said.

While the historians helped establish the authenticity of some things, they said that some of the uniform jackets, while authentic and from the period, had the wrong insignia attached, even though these too were from the right period, so disclaimers were put on some of these.

Many of the metal items, such as empty gun magazines, had been stored in grease, which led to staff having to spend a messy time cleaning them up, but once finished they looked like new.

‘If they’d not been greased, they wouldn’t be here,’ said Mr Montgomery.

There were dozens of bullet casings, copies of the 1940s German magazine Signal, bayonets, field telephones, gas masks and empty mask containers, among many other things. The auction is taking place online only and Mr Montgomery said it had already received interest from the UK, Germany, France and Australia.

‘I think it would be nice if a lot of it stayed local,’ he said.