Advice re price to pay please.
 

I have been offered the chance to purchase an 1802 pattern Royal Marines other ranks hat in good condition for its age. See the illustration (this is not the one I'm buying it was just the first image that came to hand!). Someone I know has finally agreed to sell me the one in his collection but I have no idea how much is a reasonable price to pay. I know these are pretty rare though so I don't expect it to be cheap!

Has anyone got even a rough idea of what is a good price?

Thanks

Pete

I cant imagine there are any others to compare it with that have sold in recent years.

An item so old and so rare is a once in a lifetime opportunity and the seller has the advantage.

If you want it you will have to pay whatever he asks I would imagine.

regards

It ain't going to be cheap.
Andy

I agree with Simon, quite literally a museum piece. I could imagine seeing such a thing on the antiques roadshow and the ‘experts’ being relatively stumped and speculative with value.

You potentially could contact Bosley’s pretending it’s on offer and see what their estimate is, but even then with such a rare item their estimate could be significantly out on what collectors would be willing to pay.

My suggestion would be give him whatever he wants within reason if you’re satisfied as to its originality, you’ll likely not see another for sale.

Very best of luck and do please post some pics if you become its custodian.

There is an adage that a good deal is where ‘... both parties feel cheated’

A very rare thing, I have auction records for RM items back to the 1960s, none have ever appeared for sale, have sent you a PM

Unsurprisingly no results on Google for sales of original 1802 pattern Royal Marines other ranks hats.

So I tried searching Waterloo era headdress. Perhaps also unsurprisingly hens teeth again. Closest I’ve found are these, but caveat is my internet skills are not exactly Premier League.

Obviously one is listed as officers, both are slightly later in date. Christie’s also sold a similar shako which I can see a picture of but the link takes me to a silver cup? Note the Bonham’s sale was well over a decade ago.

Handily the Bank of England have an inflation calculator which I’ve applied.

Perhaps £7.5-10k ballpark for starters? But I appreciate I’ve compared apples to oranges here.

I saw a US War of 1812 shako offered at a local show for around the same prices as Luke shared. Such things are truly not cheap. My damaged French shako plate from the battle of Bautzen was $1,100 and I was only able to get it through a trade. The Napoleonic uniforms in my study are all reenactor or stage props. I know I could never afford a real one. But they work fine for me as I like the red uniforms on display. My Welsh Guards and Canadian 48th Highlanders doublet are real, probably from the 60's I am guessing.

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The two helmets on top of the bookcases are a French Dragoon, 1879, and the other is a Belgian Cuirassier 1850 helmet. The busby is 11th Hussars 1880's and the French shako is an 1840's officers. I got these items from selling or trading off my airborne collection. I wanted them because they give me the look I want.

Bottom line if it's a real round hat for the R. Marines of the Napoleonic time period I can see it being very big bucks. I also recommend when looking at leather headgear checking it closely as it often distorts it's shape from drying out, and can be badly cracked.

Good luck,

Terry

Thanks everyone.

You've all been extremely helpful and pretty much confirmed what I thought.

The seller is a 'friend of a friend' and the last thing I want to do is to offend him in any way with a stupid offer. I have handled the hat myself and it certainly seems genuine. One thing in my favour is that he is principally an Army collector (all from the Napoleonic period or early-19th century) and has no particular interest in the Royal Marines. He is selling it because he wants to purchase another piece for his collection - which, although not vast (as everyone points out these items are RARE), is still impressive. He has owned the hat for many years and it was actually one of the first items he purchased. He has also told me where he purchased it from and that also supports its authenticity.

He has asked me to make him an offer and negotiations will start from there so I just wanted to confirm what I suspected about the price. I'll make him an offer and see how he reacts to it. I certainly think I'll need to break open the piggy bank for this one!

Thanks again for your help.

Pete

Good Luck!

Love to see your RM collection.
Regards
Irv😀

You regret the things you haven't done, not the ones you've done! So if you can, go for it!

Best of Luck

You are so right!

The number of times I've walked away from items or decided to get them later, only to change my mind, rush back, and find that they've been sold to someone else!

I've already made one offer, which was rejected as being too low, and I've now made another offer and I'm waiting to see what the reaction is to this one. I have been told how much he would like to get for it and I'm not too far off. If I do get it I will do the correct cowardly thing and lie to my wife about how much I paid for it! If not I fear she may remove my testicles with blunt pruning shears. She's a paramedic and quite handy with a scalpel!

If I do get it I'll post images on here.

Pete

If you do get it you can tell her the cost was not bad at all, and tell her about a collector friend I know who sold their house to buy a named Blue Max!!!! Or the collector who cashed in their life insurance to buy a Richthofen piece...and then died. No he did not tell his wife he cashed the insurance in so she found out when he died!!! Yep, true stories!

Good luck,

Terry

Pete
I tried to PM you but it has gone astray. Over 200 of these were made for the centenary celebrations of Trafalgar in 1905 and were used in the Corps for tattoos until after WW2. These were design by Herbert Benham, they now look very good with 120 years of ageing. The only original one I’ve seen used a lot of tar to water proof the leather as was common in naval caps of the period as well. What usually looks like ribbon actually isn’t - the band and edge are painted and the ribbon going to the button should be tarred string. Good luck, it sounds like an amazing find.
Yours
John