Matthew Wood, Royal Armouries Exhibitions Officer talks us through some of the highlights in the new exhibition Re:Loaded. Guns included in the exhibition are golden Iraqi 'Tabuk' AK-47 style assault rifle and a Smith & Wesson Model 66 Revolver, with a platinum and 18 carat white gold finish with castings holding over 900 diamonds.
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00:00 My name is Matthew Wood and I'm the Interpretation Officer here at the Royal Armouries Museum in Leeds.
00:05 We have a new temporary exhibition called Reloaded Weapons of Mass Seduction
00:10 and it's taking a look at some of the most lavishly decorated firearms we have in the collection here in Leeds.
00:16 In the Royal Armouries Museum we have a huge display and collection of weapons.
00:21 Some of these we've never been able to display before so we're really excited to show them off to our visitors.
00:27 Yes, they all are housed here in Leeds and have been for a while so we're excited to get them out.
00:33 Some of our favourites, so the curator favourites, but everyone who's worked on the exhibition,
00:37 people we show it to, they're really drawn to these three objects in particular
00:41 so that's why we wanted to get them out for you today.
00:44 I'd love to show you these. I'll start with the largest one here which is actually our gold-plated AK.
00:50 It's actually a Tabuk which is a type of AK, a copy of an AK.
00:54 It is associated with the Hussein family. It was actually taken in Iraq.
01:00 What we find really interesting about this one and what we want to talk about in the exhibition is the culture of Western.
01:07 So in Iraq if you wanted to get ahead or influence someone you'd give them a gift
01:13 and gold-plated AKs like this one were a type of gift that you would have received
01:17 so the Hussein family would have used this to really gain influence or to give to someone to show their power.
01:23 So it's a real demonstration of how a decorated firearm can be used politically to gain or give influence to people.
01:31 So it's, well depending on how you feel about it, it's attractive or not so attractive
01:36 but yeah, we wanted to talk about that political side of decorating weapons as well.
01:42 This is one, a real popular one for visitors who have seen it in our stores.
01:47 This is our Smith & Wesson diamond-encrusted revolver.
01:51 So there's over 900 diamonds on this weapon so you can see that love it or hate it, you can't ignore it.
01:58 I think it's safe to say.
02:00 The reason we wanted to show this one off in Reloaded in the temporary exhibition is to talk about the gun makers' art.
02:08 So these weapons as works of art that gun makers use to really show off what they're capable of.
02:14 So like any other object, like cars, wallpaper, vases, it's a thing that people like to decorate.
02:23 The more money you have, the more spectacular the piece is.
02:26 And gun makers like to show just how much skill they have.
02:30 Something like this, 900 diamonds, you're really making a statement as a gun maker.
02:34 So we really want to talk about that side of decorating firearms.
02:38 This is one of my favorites in the collection because it's an absolutely spectacular art deco, tiny, tiny pistol.
02:45 Probably the smallest pistol that we've got on display.
02:48 Again, not one that we've been able to display at the Royal Armies up until now.
02:51 So this will be the first time any of our visitors will be able to see it.
02:55 It's been decorated, we believe, by the master engraver of FM, which is the gun makers who make the baby Browning.
03:04 It's absolutely gorgeous of its time.
03:07 You do have to get quite close to it as a visitor, but it's covered in engravings of roses.
03:13 We've got a sort of a sun decoration on there as well, and some text on it.
03:18 So it's on its own in a case.
03:20 So we really want to show it off, but don't miss this one when you come to the exhibition
03:24 and just see the real skill that goes into decorating some of these weapons.
03:30 So the exhibition opens on Saturday, the 16th of December,
03:34 and it runs all the way through to the 30th of June, 2024.
03:38 So plenty of time to come down and see some of these spectacularly decorated weapons.