RRF Black Plastic

[Mike H]

Has anybody got any information reference the black plastic badge worn by the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers in N.Ireland.
As far as i know,it was only worn for one tour ,but id love to know more.Also what about values ?

[Deejayuu]

Not sure about the details other than the badge was not very popular. Here is the badge i beleive your query relates to.
Cheers, Dave

[grey_green_acorn]

Here is a version issued to 2RRF for a tour in South Armagh, Northern Ireland in 1984/85.

Not popular as the long brass "clip" would often pierce the forehead of the wearer!

[rockape560]

no wonder the badge was unpoplur with that fixing.who ever thought that one up needed shot.it looks dangerous as well as uncomoftable

philip

[54Bty]

Thats two versions shown, only one to go now.

[NEMO]

A mate of mine who has been collecting a good while has one of these and he did a write up years back for one of the badge collectors news letters I will contact him for more details .

If it helps i can remember him saying that for many years these were thought to be WW2 vintage and that to the best of his knowledge they were only issued to the ` advance party ` for the tour of N.I

( the ex regulars will know how many personel are in an advance party as i dont want to guess ?)

but the interesting question is , were a full batch obtained from the suppliers for the whole unit and just a small amount issued ?
regards ,Nemo.

[Alan O]

I think you are mixing up various stories here. These date from the 1970s as the Fusiliers did not wear this badge in WW2 as it was not designed until 1958.

The advance party story relates to the Kings (Liverpool and Manchesters) regt who had a black badge made for an NI tour but it was not a success.

There are 3 versions of theis RRf badge and it was worn for several tours as the fixing was redesigned 3 times. the first one had a plastic prong and washer which fell off, the second had the brass strips and was uncomfortable and the third had the fold over aluminium strips.

Alan