Original Items: Only One Lot Available. This is an intriguing group of 19th-century relics formerly held in a prominent militaria collection and preserved together with an attribution identifying them as ground finds from sites associated with the Fenian Raids into Canada. The lot includes a small Irish-style harp badge, an 1852 Quebec Bank halfpenny token pierced near its edge, an 1859 Province of Canada one-cent coin likewise pierced for suspension, a heavily damaged badge attributed to the British 16th Regiment of Foot, and a single musket ball. The objects themselves are period or period-style pieces appropriate to the broader mid-19th-century context, but no archaeological records or individual find-location documentation accompany them, so the Fenian Raid ground-find provenance should remain identified as a collection attribution rather than a independently documented excavation history.

The Fenian Raids were a series of armed incursions from the United States into British North America and, later, Canada, principally in 1866 and 1870. The raiders belonged to Irish republican organizations seeking to use attacks on British territory in North America as leverage against British rule in Ireland. The best-known operation occurred in June 1866, when Fenian forces crossed the Niagara River, occupied Fort Erie, and defeated Canadian militia at the Battle of Ridgeway before withdrawing to the United States. Further attempts followed in 1870, while an additional incursion into Manitoba in 1871 is also commonly included in the wider Fenian Raid period.

They include:

- Small harp-shaped badge with two loops, in the style of the Irish Brigade. This form of insignia / badge was originally designed for use by pre Civil War Irish-American militia units and by the Irish Republican Brotherhood (Fenians) established in New York in 1858. Both sides during the Civil War contributed large amounts of Irish-immigrants and native born Irish- American manpower to their Armies. These forms of insignias were unofficially worn by members of those Irish units as an identity item. In the Post-War period, these Harps were again taken up as the badge for the Irish-American Fenian military units that invaded Canada in two campaigns of 1866-70 to force Great Britain into negations to release its control over Ireland and to establish an Irish Republic. There is breakage in some of the strings of the harp.

- 1852-dated Quebec Bank token half penny with hole punched near edge, in the style often done to the Fenian Brotherhood badges. In their absence, coins such as these were used. Coin shows very heavy wear and was definitely punched during the period.

- 1859-dated Canadian penny with hole punched near edge, in the style often done to the Fenian Brotherhood badges. Coin shows very heavy wear and was definitely punched during the period.

- 16th Bedfordshire Regiment of Foot ap badge, relic example with pieces missing. 16 is still visible but part of the belt and star are gone. In 1861, both battalions sailed separately to Canada, as part of a reinforcement of British forces there in reaction to the American Civil War. The diplomatic crisis brought about by the Trent Affair increased tensions, with expectations of war against the United States only receding in 1862. This would make sense as to why the badge was found at a Fenian site.

- Single musket ball.

What makes this assemblage compelling is not any one pristine artifact, but the combination of Irish nationalist imagery, pierced mid-19th-century Canadian currency, a British regimental badge connected to a unit that actually served against the Fenians, and the longstanding collection attribution to Fenian Raid sites. As preserved, it provides an interesting research group connected to one of the most unusual episodes in the military history of post-Civil War North America.