We buy Militaria and other uniform insignia

We would like to buy your spare uniform badges and buttons - but this depends on price, originality and quality.  To sell items to us, please read this page first.

If you have any items you wish to part with, please send a list of them with individual prices (in £ Sterling) - as opposed to the actual items.  That way we don't incur unnecessary postage charges should we make a business decision against buying the pieces you wish to sell. It is cheaper to send a list both in terms of weight and postage cost.  A photocopy or scanned image of the items may help if you do not know what they are or do not have access to standard insignia reference books.

We want:

We want genuine original cap badges, collar dogs, patches, buttons, rank badges and other insignia from the United Kingdom and British Empire or British Commonwealth counties, plus worldwide parachute wings. 

We do not want:

We do not want reproductions, re-strikes, copies, damaged items, corroded or 'dug-up' metal detector 'finds', weapons, medals, documents, German Nazi items or bulky items such as uniforms or equipment.

Quality and authenticity

If you have doubts about the quality or authenticity of an item, chances are that we will have similar doubts - if so, we would send the item back to you. Similarly our clients tend not to want items that are badly worn, damaged, dented, scratched or minus the fitting on the back (normally a loop). To prevent unnecessary postal costs please list only undamaged badges and buttons which you consider genuine.  

Pricing

We regard setting the price as the owner's job - that way, you the seller get the price you want for them. We set the prices for items on our lists and see it only fair that you do the same for your property.  Please tell us how much you want for your items.

Individual Prices.  Sometimes people offer to sell us a number of items at an 'all-in' price for the lot.  The problem with buying job-lots is that we might not want some of the items.  We prefer that you set a separate price for each item you wish to sell.  This makes it simpler to reject or return the items we don't want.  If you expect us to buy a collection at a single price for the lot, the price you ask should be a lower in order to compensate for potentially unsaleable items amongst the job-lot.

As a guide, if we think an item will re-sell quickly, we will pay or swap for up to 60% of our selling price.  If we already have a lot of similar items in stock, or if we are buying in bulk, it means that we will have items sitting on our shelves for a while; this would tie-up our cash, so we would not pay as much.

Please bear in mind that we may already hold sufficient stock of some of the items you offer for sale. Even if we do hold sufficient stock, we might still buy - but only if the price is low enough to justify tying-up our money.

Swapping and trading

If you give the items you wish to swap a 'cash-value', this gives more flexibility in case your first choice from our catalogue is no longer available - we can then use this cash-value against your alternative choices. With over 14,000 collectors on our books it would otherwise be difficult to keep track of badges sent as swaps.

Once you set the price we will then be in a better position to tell whether or not we can re-sell them - 'one-for-one' swaps will not keep us in business.

By giving swaps a 'cash-value' we can either send you a cheque or put the amount as a credit against your name. Please specify whether you would prefer a cheque or credit - please bear in mind that it costs us £1.50 in bank charges to produce each cheque and prefer to give credit for low-cost purchases.

Pictures

It would be helpful if you send us pictures of the fronts AND backs of your spares.  If there are manufacturers' names on the 'slider' fastenings of cap badges, it would be helpful to be able to see clear pictures of those markings.

The next step

Please send a price list and pictures of your spare items to -

Ian Kelly (Militaria)
PO Box 66
ELLESMERE
Shropshire
SY12 0YS
United Kingdom

You may also send details via our online message form