Military experts join to open Shrewsbury shop
Two men with a passion for military history have joined forces to open a new antiques shop in Shrewsbury.
Peter Duckers, former curator of the town's Regimental Museum at Shrewsbury Castle, and has opened DCM Antiques with his friend Mark Cashmore – and they are already attracting interest due to the World War I centenary.
Mr Duckers, who has written extensively on war medals and military history and has a specialist knowledge of military research and genealogy related to armed forces' service, said that the new venture, which is based at the Parade Shopping Centre, in St Mary's Place, was already proving to be a success.
"We offer a wide range of unusual and interesting collectors' items and historic artefacts, including medals, historic autographs and documents, ancient coins, Roman pottery, Chinese porcelain from as early as 1730 but it is the World War I medals which are causing an immediate stir," Mr Duckers said."Obviously there is a huge amount of publicity about the history of the Great War at the moment and so our new shop is meeting a demand for memorabilia and information," he added.
He said that they currently stocked a wide range of WWI medals, orders and decorations, including a rare medal set belonging to a nurse called Nena Taylor who served during the conflict.
Mr Duckers explained: "She received the Order of the League of Mercy which is quite a prestigious award for voluntary medical service over a long period and is seldom seen with other medals.
"The others in the nursing medal group are the Voluntary Medical Service Medal, the 1914-18 Red Cross service medal and the Red Cross Proficiency Medal in nursing. We expect the set to attract a lot of interest."
