Mementos

[Troubleshooter]

In a way, mementos are like trophies that we didn't need to shoot.

 

[Jason Miller]

This is a great post. I don't have much, but I've picked up rocks from places I've hunted and also got a little bit of sand from the Kalahari.

For those with cool stuff, if you don't mind, please post pictures.

OK, As stated somewhere else, I purchased a little house down in Texas to escape the Colorado winters to (we are from Texas) my wife gave me full control over the decor of the house so I am in the process of moving hundreds of artifacts etc down there. If anyone lives close to Temple/Waco area cigars on my once I am done with the remodel.

 

[Ryan]

A basket I got from an artists market in Windhoek and a couple warthog tusk bottle openers just like they had hanging on a hook at the camp fridge in Namibia. Always reminds me of popping a top off a Tafel beer at sundown.

 

[Hunt anything]

A spear, 4 gin traps, and beat up panga acquired way out in the Mozambique bush

A set of baskets with lids on tall stands from the dining room at camp in Tanzania.

On my first safari my PH asked me if I wanted to take home a spear and some snares that we liberated from some poachers. I wanted to but was worried about customs. Since it was my first safari I had no clue what was allowable so I declined. Huge mistake. This was in Mozambique. I have brought home rocks from all of the areas I’ve visited.

 

[ActionBob]

On my first safari my PH asked me if I wanted to take home a spear and some snares that we liberated from some poachers. I wanted to but was worried about customs. Since it was my first safari I had no clue what was allowable so I declined. Huge mistake. This was in Mozambique. I have brought home rocks from all of the areas I’ve visited.

Yea the spear i had to find a saw and cut about 5" off the wooden handle and pull some rusty nails to remove the metal spear head. Then I got it into my rifle case. No problems. The panga was in there as well.

The gin traps I had shipped with the trophies. It all showed up together. I mean if you are crazy enough to pay the freight on rusty iron who can really deny it? It's just iron.

As for the baskets, the Outfitter brought them over with his stuff for the show. He had busted his Ruger RSM stock using it like a baseball bat on a wounded leopard and I had a new one so gave him that plus some nice hard to find optics. Most guys are up for friendly trades

 

[Jason Miller]

On my first safari my PH asked me if I wanted to take home a spear and some snares that we liberated from some poachers. I wanted to but was worried about customs. Since it was my first safari I had no clue what was allowable so I declined. Huge mistake. This was in Mozambique. I have brought home rocks from all of the areas I’ve visited.

Oh man! those would have been so cool. everything I collect I try to collect from the individual who made it, or in the case of spears, weapons and knives from the person using it in the field. I want to know its history! I don't want articles made to sell in the tourist market if I can help it... I have about 15 Masai knives that I buy when I work with them in Kenya and will only buy them off the belt of the owner, then I give them a sharpie and have them sign it. I give them away as gifts and they are a huge hit amongst the guys.

The pic is of my last haul in the fall while living with the Masai

 

[Jason Miller]

Yea the spear i had to find a saw and cut about 5" off the wooden handle and pull some rusty nails to remove the metal spear head. Then I got it into my rifle case. No problems. The panga was in there as well.

The gun traps I had shipped with the trophies. It all showed up together. I mean if you are crazy enough to pay the freight on rusty iron who can really deny it? It's just iron.

As for the baskets, the Outfitter brought them over with his stuff for the show. He had busted his Ruger RSM stock using it like a baseball bat on a wounded leopard and I had a new one so gave him that plus some nice hard to find optics. Most guys are up for friendly trades

I use an expandable fishing pole case that can expand to over 6 feet, I leave it in Africa and once a year haul it back filled with spears (when I can find them) or other long items. Never had a single problem with bringing them home.

 

[Red Leg]

I agree with all above.

Our home is a bit of a museum. It is something of an inevitable result of a military career, which as an Arab speaker quite a bit was spent banging around the Middle East (much of it a somewhat saner place before 911 - for instance our family once spent Christmas in Sanaa, Yemen), combined with international travel, and an abiding love of history and art. Virtually all our furniture is period, much of it French or American Empire. Militaria ranges from the Napoleonic Wars through the American Civil War and weapons from across the Middle East, Indo-Persia, and Africa. There is sword carried by a young lieutenant who captured a French Eagle in Wellington's Army at the battle of Salamanca in 1812. There is a Confederate Enfield carried by young mounted infantryman, badly wounded at the battle of New Market in May of 1864. There is an inscribed Model 1860 Staff & Field Officer Sword that was carried by a Union major who was killed in action in the Carolinas in late 1864. There is a knobkerrie with an attached silver plate proudly brought home by a British soldier from "Zululand" in 1879. There are several period Zulu Iklwa stabbing spears and Masai lion/war spears. Islamic weapons represent geographic regions from Zanzibar to the Mogul and Islamic Empire of India and Persia.

We have collected pottery shards and fragments across much of Arabian Peninsula. As I look up from where I am typing there is a first edition of Lawrence's "Seven Pillars of Wisdom" held up by bookends made from a rail of the railroad he so successfully interdicted in the Desert War. The Riyadh embassy Attaché' team drove across about hundred miles of desert to find a stretch of the old long abandoned track. Using hacksaws, we brought back a couple of eight foot lengths and had a them cut and chromed. Sets of these bookends became our standard gift to visiting Senior officers and officials.

I haven't counted them, but between the guest house/ trophy room and the main house are at least a thousand volumes. Some are quite rare and each and everyone of them has been read. One of my prized volumes is a late 17th century copy of "Josephus" in English. There is also an inscribed copy of Margaret Thatcher's auto biography for which I stood in line for an hour at a book signing in Northern Virginia. I have often said I would have done that for no one else - but I wanted to say thank you to her.

Our art collection contains no great masters, but it does contain respected artists from both Europe and the United States. Even a few of my own. We also are proud owners of three of Ella Koepke Mewhinney's beautiful expressionist works. She lived and painted in the early part of the last century just up the road from our place. Others are totally unknown. The only requirement is that we love the work.

So yes, these "things" can be important. And while they are only things, they make real anew our experiences, or our passions like mine for military and cultural history, or simple flights of fancy. And with a good book and a good bottle of wine or couple of fingers of single malt, one is never lonely or bored.

 

[Hunt anything]

Red Leg, it would be fasinating to have a tour of your house! My father grew up in Virginia and his backyard was a battle field late in the war. We have a lot of mini balls that we took out of the walls and a few cannon balls.
My grandfather hunted arrowheads and had a huge collection of about 11,000. He even had a human vertebrae with a head lodged in it but it and his grandfather’s civil war officer’s sword were stolen, the most interesting piece to me anyway is a confederate field manual with the notes of the soldier that carried it in the margins. We also have an old British Brown Bess musket, pistol and knife that were apparently buried in the old smoke house to keep them away from the union soldiers that ransacked the house after the battle.