Trench Art From WWI: History and Collecting Military Craftsmanship

Making Art From War

Collecting trench art has gotten complicated with all the reproductions and misinformation flying around. As someone who has been hunting for WWI-era soldier-made pieces at estate sales, militaria shows, and antique shops for years, I learned everything there is to know about this deeply human category of collectibles. Today, I will share it all with you.

Trench art fascinates me in ways that conventional militaria just doesn’t. Think about it — soldiers sitting in muddy, miserable holes in the ground, waiting for orders or incoming enemy fire, took shell casings and bullet fragments and turned them into… art. Vases, lighters, picture frames, jewelry. Human creativity persisting stubbornly in places that were specifically designed for destruction. There’s something profoundly moving about that when you stop and really think about it.

I started collecting these pieces after I found a brass shell casing engraved with French village names at an estate sale about eight years ago. The previous owner’s grandfather had carried it home from the Somme. That direct, physical connection to a specific person standing in a specific place during one of history’s worst chapters — that’s what hooks collectors like me. Once you feel that connection through an object, you’re done. You’re a trench art collector whether you planned to be or not.

Where the Practice Came From

Probably should have led with this section, honestly. Soldiers and prisoners of war have been making art from military materials for centuries. Napoleonic prisoners carved intricate, incredibly detailed ship models from beef bones during their captivity. But World War I turned trench art from an occasional practice into a genuine phenomenon on a massive scale.

The conditions of that war created a perfect storm for artistic output. Men spent months on end in static positions along trench lines. They had enormous amounts of time on their hands between fighting. They had access to literally mountains of discarded military material — spent shell casings, bullet fragments, copper driving bands, you name it. And they had a deep psychological need for something, anything, beyond the horror surrounding them every day. Making art gave their hands and minds something constructive to do in the most destructive environment humanity had ever created.

The term itself — trench art — emerged from that war, though the practice absolutely continued through WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and every conflict since. Each war produced its own variations reflecting the materials available and the cultures of the soldiers making the pieces.

The Materials at Hand

Artillery shell casings became the most common canvas by far. Brass takes engraving beautifully, and soldiers had access to spent cases by the literal thousands — they were scattered everywhere across the battlefield. Smaller bullet casings got turned into cigarette lighters, rings, and small crucifixes. Copper driving bands stripped from artillery shells were hammered into bracelets and decorative items.

The tools were almost entirely improvised, which makes the quality of some pieces even more impressive. Nails heated over fires served as engraving tools. Stones did the polishing work. Whatever soldiers could scrounge from their immediate environment became part of their toolkit. Some pieces show truly remarkable craftsmanship despite these primitive conditions. Others are crude and simple but somehow even more poignant because of it — you can almost feel the urgency and emotion in every rough mark.

What They Made

Vases made from shell casings are the most commonly encountered form of trench art. Soldiers would painstakingly hammer decorative patterns into the brass, engrave their unit insignias or the names of battles they’d survived, and sometimes add handles or decorative rims. These were sent home to mothers and wives who displayed them proudly on mantles for decades. Many are still sitting on mantles today, actually, though the families who inherited them don’t always know the full story.

Letter openers, cigarette cases, and lighters served practical daily purposes while carrying intensely personal meaning. A lighter crafted from a German bullet casing by an American doughboy tells its own complete story without a single word. I have three trench art lighters in my collection and each one has made me stop and think about the hands that shaped them.

Crucifixes and religious items reflect faith persisting through unimaginable chaos and suffering. Some are delicate and genuinely beautiful works of art; others are simple crosses bent from wire in what must have been desperate, prayerful moments. Both types speak volumes about the human need for meaning and hope in the darkest circumstances.

Why Collectors Chase These

Provenance matters enormously with trench art — more than with almost any other collecting category I’m involved in. A shell casing vase with documented history — who made it, which unit they served in, which battle it came from — commands significant premiums over anonymous pieces with no story attached. The story is the value. The brass itself is worth very little; the human experience it represents is what collectors are really paying for.

Authentication challenges definitely exist in this market. The practice was so widespread during and after WWI that reproductions and outright fantasy pieces have found their way into the market over the decades. Developing the knowledge to separate genuine wartime pieces from later creations requires understanding the actual materials used, the manufacturing techniques available to soldiers, and the historical context of different units and battles.

That’s what makes trench art endearing to us serious collectors — the research requirement. You absolutely cannot just look at an item across a table and instantly know everything about it. You have to understand the wars, the ammunition manufacturing of the era, the improvised techniques soldiers actually used in the field. Every piece you research teaches you something new, and that never-ending learning curve is part of what makes the hobby so rewarding.

Living History

Every single piece of trench art represents a human decision to create something beautiful or meaningful in circumstances designed to destroy everything. A soldier chose to pick up that shell casing instead of ignoring it. He chose to spend his precious free time shaping metal instead of sleeping or writing letters. He chose to make something that would outlast the war, outlast his own life in many cases, and carry a tiny piece of his experience forward through the decades.

That resonance — that echo of individual human creativity against the backdrop of industrial warfare — outlasts the metal itself. And holding one of these pieces in your hands, knowing its story, connects you to that moment and that person in a way that no history book or museum display case can quite match. It’s why I keep collecting, and it’s why I think this category deserves more attention from the broader collecting community.