SAAF tie pin
 

There seems to have been a fashion at some stage for having badges and buttons converted into tie pins. These turn up often , usually when a veteran dies and his next of kin clears out his memories ( you know, those items which are really pretty worthless, but you cannot bear to throw away ) .
Last week this tie pin was brought in amongst some other militaria. It is a mess dress collar badge which has been professionally mounted on a gold tie pin. When I looked at the badge more closely, I saw that the' motto' was SAAF/ ZALM, which would have dated it in the 20s , when Dutch, rather than Afrikaans was an official language. The vendor said that it had belonged to his late father who was a WW2 veteran, so I guess that there must have been a stock of old messdress badges around.
Anyway, I'll share this especially as no one has posted anything on the SAAF section of the forum for a couple of months.
Regards
Mike