According to the most general division, this collection consists of cold and firearms and protective equipment, tentatively taken from the 16th to the 19th century. Medieval swords of the XIV-XV centuries also belong to this small but diverse collection. century that form a special group and they are part of the permanent museum exhibition. The group of medieval swords in our collection is also valuable because most of it consists of specimens originally created on the territory of the Serbian state, which, in addition to imported weapons, also had its own products, which were the work of local master armorers.  Our collection also contains 20 Schiavone swords that appear to have developed in the 16th and 17th centuries from the Serbian sword. Among them is a specimen dated to the very beginning of the 16th century, which is a rarity even in Europe. The collection of European swords is also very diverse in terms of type, time and provenance. Since the Middle Ages, centers for making swords have been established in Europe, among which Solingen and Passau in Germany, Toledo in Spain, Milan in Italy, etc. were the leading ones. Master sword makers signed their works, and their workshops had their own trademark. Our collection also contains original blades made in one of those centers, but there are also some with fake marks and names of the craftsmen.

  
Among the sabers of this collection, the hussar sabers stand out as a whole, from the 15th to the 18th century. These eastern-type light cavalry units are mentioned in the sources as early as the 14th century, increasingly in the 15th century during the time of the Hungarian king Matthias Corvinus (1458-1490). The main weapon of the hussars was the saber, and the mustache was an integral part of the uniform. In our collection there are several Hungarian hussar sabers as well as one example of a French hussar saber from the end of the 17th century, made in the famous workshop in Klingenthal.

Among the knives and daggers, we single out the hunting dagger that belonged to Austrian Field Marshal Ludwig Baden, one of the greatest military leaders of his time, and which was donated to the Military Museum by Prince Pavle Karađorđević. The handle of this dagger in the shape of a "Turkish head" is an allegorical symbol of the time in which it was created. It is possible that the great military leader received this dagger as a gift after the Battle of Slankamen in 1691, when he defeated the Turkish forces of Grand Vizier Mustafa Caprili, and Mustafa Pasha himself lost his life in that battle. Apart from the mentioned types of cold weapons, the collection contains a large number of spears, maces and maces. There is also a large collection of halberds, once a very effective infantry weapon on a pole.

 
Firearms in this collection include weapons with a flintlock and flintlock fire system, as well as one example of a fuse musket, which originates from the 17th century. Undoubtedly, the most valuable firearms in our collection are pistols and arquebuses from the 16th and 17th centuries. These are, as far as we know, the only examples of cookies preserved in museums in Serbia and represent a true rarity.

Of the regulated weapons with a flintlock fire system, the most characteristic examples of our collection are the Austrian commission rifles M.1754 and M.1754/67, which were illegally supplied from Austria for the needs of the insurgents in the First Serbian Uprising, one example of the Prussian infantry rifle M.1723/40, the famous French musket M.1777, with a recognizable heart-shaped barrel 17.78mm, as well as a number of pistols of different provenance. Among the firearms, we single out as particularly valuable a civilian gift carbine that belonged to Duke Stevan Knićanin (1807-1855). The rifle was made in 1850 in Vienna and is the work of the famous Viennese craftsman Matthias Novotneg. A knight and knight of various orders, Stevan Petrović from Kničan received this luxurious carbine, with a dedication written on the barrel in gold letters in the technique of tauching, after the revolution of 1848 as a sign of recognition presented to him by his dear Serb brothers living in Serbia.

Protective equipment and armor form a special part of the collection, in which the most numerous are assault caps, i.e. helmets of a recognizable shape with a neck protector in the form of a lobster tail. The collection also contains several full armors, although the authenticity of some of them is rather unreliable. In the romantic spirit of the 19th century, the nobles, in the absence of original examples of medieval armor and weapons, decorated their castles with copies.

 
In contrast to full armor, which, as protection, becomes useless due to the mass application and improvement of firearms, original examples of chest and back armor from the 16th and 17th centuries are much more numerous in our collection. Also worth mentioning are the few flak jackets that were used long before the appearance of armor and until the 13th century represented the only form of protection for the body. This brief overview of the contents of the collection represents, in the most general sense, historical cross-sections in the development of weapons, military tactics, technology and technique in general, that is, the development of human civilization in a given period.

The collection was published in: Branka Milosavljević, European firearms from the 16th to the 19th century in the collections of the Military Museum, catalog of the exhibition, Belgrade 1991, Branka Milosavljević, Mačevi 14-20. century from the collection of the Military Museum, catalog of the Belgrade 1993 exhibition, and individual items or typologically and chronologically related items were published in numerous articles by several authors in the museum magazine Vesnik.

The collection is handled by: Vuk Obradović