Alexander Historical Auctions

05/08/2026

Today commemorates the surrender of Germany in 1945. Remember the sacrifice.

"Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Forces, Reims: N**i General Jodl, representing Admiral Doenitz, strides into the 'war room' where Allied Generals ...

04/25/2026

Remember our allies today, on Anzac Day.

18 likes. "Australians gather for Anzac Day dawn services as Welcome to Country booed | ABC NEWS"

04/16/2026

Halder's crucially important estate - documents, relics, letters - all in our upcoming auction April 21st. Bid directly with us, or on Invaluable of LiveAuctioneers.

04/09/2026

A marvelous piece of history!

Napoleon’s Three-Barrel Pistol (1802), a gold-inlaid flintlock by London gunmaker Durs Egg, gifted by a British officer. Its tap-action system fires three shots, with a “Marengo” engraving honoring his 1800 victory.

04/09/2026

A great image!

World War II History:
Image of Ruby Barnett test firing a weapon at the Aberdeen Proving Ground in Maryland, 1942.

Maryland’s Aberdeen Proving Ground opened in 1917 and today is the military’s oldest weapons-testing facility in the United States. It’s a big operation. At its peak in World War II, Aberdeen had housing for more than 27,000, and today it still employs more then 12,000 people.

Through its first decades Aberdeen was a man’s world. But that changed during World War II. The real-life Rosie the Riveters who moved into industrial jobs during that era, and the women who became weapons-testers for the first time in Aberdeen were part of that same phenomenon.

04/05/2026

What a wonderful photo - and brave woman!

A civilian woman pours a drink of cider for a Bren gunner in action in Lisieux, August 1944

04/05/2026

THE MAP USED IN PLANNING THE INVASION OF THE USSR! Coming in our April 21 Auction - Bid Live or Online at Invaluable or LiveAuctioneers O.K.H. MAP OF TROOP BUILDUPS ON THE UKRANIAN BORDER PRIOR TO OPERATION BARBAROSSA A historically important war-date map, 22.5 x 20 in., originating from the personal files of German General FRANZ HALDER (1884-1972), Chief of Staff of the German ‘Oberkommando des Heeres' (OKH), or Army High Command, from 1938 until his removal in 1942, and a primary planner of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. The map is a 1:1,000,000-scale depiction of the intersecting borders of German-occupied Poland and Czechoslovakia and allied Hungary with those of Soviet Ukraine, with modern Lviv in the east at right and Katowice in the west at left. The map has been extensively hand-annotated in ink to show troop buildups in the German-aligned territories, and is dated March 2, 1941 at top left. This indicates that it was prepared to indicate troop dispersals prior to the launch of Barbarossa in June, 1941. A key has been pasted to the map at lower left, providing a color code for troop movements by date. The verso of the map is stamped ‘Geheime Kommandosache' (Top Secret) and ‘Nur durch Offizier' (Official Use Only). The edges of the map have been trimmed to remove unnecessary areas, and it shows folds and file holes to the interior, otherwise in very good condition overall. The areas of Ukraine shown on this map would be completely overrun by the German offensive by the end of summer, 1941.

Alexander Historical Auctions LLC is a leading auctioneer of fine historic autographs, documents, and photographs, militaria from all conflicts, and important historical relics. Based in Chesapeake City, Maryland, we have been in continuous operation since 1991 providing superior service to consigno...

03/25/2026

Our auction goes live tomorrow at 10:00 AM EST!

Alexander Historical Auctions LLC is a leading auctioneer of fine historic autographs, documents, and photographs, militaria from all conflicts, and important historical relics. Based in Chesapeake City, Maryland, we have been in continuous operation since 1991 providing superior service to consigno...

03/17/2026

03/16/2026

THE FLAG THAT DRAPED THE COFFIN OF PRESIDENT ULYSSES S. GRANT Auctioning March 27th. A great piece of history!

THE FLAG THAT DRAPED THE COFFIN OF PRESIDENT ULYSSES S. GRANT A presidential relic of great historical importance, the 38-star American flag that was brought to the deathbed of President Ulysses S. Grant immediately after his passing and which remained with him, at times covering his coffin, until t...

03/12/2026

Roy Benavidez served during the Korean War and in Vietnam, though he is legendary for a single, harrowing afternoon.

In an act of bravery that defies belief, he survived what became known as “Six Hours in Hell”—fighting off a massive enemy force to ensure his comrades reached their extraction helicopters.

For these heroics, he would eventually be awarded the Medal of Honor.

Born on August 5, 1935, to a Mexican-Yaqui family in Texas, Roy was an orphan by the age of seven.

To support his remaining family, he dropped out of the seventh grade to work on cotton and sugar beet farms.

With few prospects, he enlisted in the Texas Army National Guard in 1952 before transitioning to active duty in 1955.

By 1959, he had completed Airborne training and joined the elite 82nd Airborne Division. He later qualified for the Special Forces, eventually joining the secretive MACV-SOG (Studies and Observations Group).

During his first tour in 1965, Benavidez’s career nearly ended when he stepped on a land mine.

Doctors told him he would never walk again and prepared his medical discharge.

Unwilling to accept this fate, Benavidez began a secret nightly ritual: while his ward slept, he would crawl on his elbows to a wall and use it to slowly pull himself into a standing position.

After a year of agonizing self-rehabilitation, he shocked his doctors by walking out of the hospital unassisted. He returned to Vietnam in January 1968.

On May 2, 1968, a call for help crackled over the radio at Lộc Ninh. A 12-man reconnaissance team (three Green Berets and nine Montagnard tribesmen) was surrounded by an entire NVA battalion of roughly 1,000 troops.

Hearing the desperation in their voices, Benavidez grabbed a medical bag and a knife—forgetting his rifle in the rush—and jumped into an extraction helicopter.

Upon arrival, he leaped into the fray, sprinted 75 yards through heavy fire, and was immediately wounded in the leg and head. Despite his injuries, he began treating the wounded and organizing a defense.

When the first extraction helicopter was shot down, Benavidez—now suffering from a bayonet wound to the arm and a shattered jaw from a rifle butt—refused to quit.

At one point, he was literally holding his own intestines in place while dragging men to a second rescue craft.

When he was finally pulled into the helicopter, he had lost so much blood that he was presumed dead.

Back at the base, a doctor began zipping him into a body bag.

In a final, desperate act to show he was alive, Benavidez spat in the doctor's face.

He had survived six hours of hand-to-hand combat, sustained 37 separate wounds, and saved the lives of eight men.

Though he initially received the Distinguished Service Cross, the Medal of Honor was delayed by a lack of eyewitnesses and bureaucratic red tape.

It wasn't until 1981, after one of the men he saved—Brian O'Connor—came forward from Fiji to testify, that Ronald Reagan presented him with the nation's highest honor.