SERVICE BELLS FOR SALE

Evening Post, Volume CXV, Issue 147, 24 June 1933, Page 26

SERVICE BELLS FOR SALE

Who wishes to become theownerbf a ship's bell? (asks the "Cape Times'"). J At Portsmouth in 'August there wiii I be 125 for sale, ranging from midgets only 6J inches high and Weighing 81b to giants of 22 inches and turning the scale at 1611b. , • The handsome silver presentation bolls which often grace the quarterdeck: of a "warship are never sold, but aro housed in the depot until another ship of the name comes along to carry them. The ordinary bronze service bell, however, has a price fixed for it, and is then offered for sale to naval officers or others who, for sentimental or historical reasons, wish to acquire them. Such a sale is to take place in August next, and so keen 'is the deiiiand that for every one of the 12:5 bells offered, many applications will be received from practically every part of the world. Applications must be in, months ahead, and the bells are eventually disposed of to those whoso previous associations with the particular bell give them the best claim, to its ownership. To one acquainted with naval tradition and the unwritten laws of the &ea, what pictures are'called into being by the torse official language of the announcements giving particulars of the bells to be sold. And so these 125 bells whose naval service, has ended will change hands in August; but they will, every single one, go to new homes where memories of their past associations will ensure them that same measure of reverent respect and care, which from the daj-s of Drake naval tradition decrees that all hands, from the commanding officer to the newly joined 0.D., must accord to the ship's bell.