SAS wings

[Anjoucollector]

Good evening,

a collector from a French forum has bought this badge, as WW2 Egypt-made SAS wings. He needs your expertise to confrim they are genuine or not. Thank you

Laurent

[manchesters]

I am not a SF collector, but as a wartime cloth badge regardless of what it is I would say this is a very nice early and original WW2 SAS pair of wings.

regards

[JerryBB]

Is this the couple of grand set on ebay?

[arnhem2280]

If wings are selling for £2,000 plus then I might sell my collection !

Cheers

Arnhem

[pontecagnano]

Originally Posted by Anjoucollector

a collector from a French forum has bought this badge, as WW2 Egypt-made SAS wings. He needs your expertise to confrim they are genuine or not.

Call me a bluff old traditionalist but I think I’d check the authenticity first before parting with that sort of dosh!

The interesting question this wing raises for me goes beyond whether it is original or not.

It centres on the number of variations of early WWII SAS wings, that seem to exist, many of which are supposed to have originated in Cairo.

The original strength of ‘L’ Detachment in late 1941 and 1942 has been estimated at around 65 men. I’ve probably seen almost that number of variations of early SAS wings, during my years of collecting, most of which look very plausible. The problem this creates is that it implies every member of the unit spent a lot of time going into town and ordering unique wings from different sources, rather than actually engaging in any action, which of course is nonsense.

There does appear to be some evidence that David Stirling ordered enamelled metal wings, which proved very fragile and weren’t adopted, from a Cairo establishment. (There is a thread here on the forum that includes this topic with images)

I wonder if some of these more atypical ‘Cairo’ wings originated later in the War or were even locally made in Malaya post War.

The same issue also arises with beret badges. There are the well documented cast brass ‘Cairo’ badges. By early 1942 however, both David Stirling and Paddy Mayne were wearing a very recognisable (by modern standards) pattern of cloth badge. Again, there are a significant number of weird and wonderful examples (including crude metal ones) that by implication slot somewhere in between the (quite sophisticated) 1942 cloth badges and the 1944 pattern ones. Was the SAS really so disorganised that significant numbers of the unit had to make their own arrangements in respect of insignia?

There will always be interesting badge variations, locally made in any conflict, but the increasingly large number of SAS related examples still appearing does sometimes appear excessive.

Graham

[Frank Kelley]

Well that is the issue and has been a cause for concern, to me at least, for quite a number of years, I very much doubt if the question of insignia was really uppermost in the minds of the original members at all.

Originally Posted by pontecagnano

Was the SAS really so disorganised that significant numbers of the unit had to make their own arrangements in respect of insignia?

There will always be interesting badge variations, locally made in any conflict, but the increasingly large number of SAS related examples still appearing does sometimes appear excessive.

Graham

[irish]

Originally Posted by Frank Kelley

Well that is the issue and has been a cause for concern, to me at least, for quite a number of years, I very much doubt if the question of insignia was really uppermost in the minds of the original members at all.

To Frank’s point they just wore the insignia they did not study it. More important issues were at hand.

[grenadierguardsman]

IMHO the quality of these wings is shocking.
Andy

[HamandJam]

Hi Laurent,


They have a genuine look and feel they are most probably the real thing but need to have them in the flesh to make final judgment. If they are Egyptian made is hard to tell for sure. I recall seller also said it had provenance is there more known about that?

Cheers,

JB

Originally Posted by Anjoucollector

Good evening,

a collector from a French forum has bought this badge, as WW2 Egypt-made SAS wings. He needs your expertise to confrim they are genuine or not. Thank you

Laurent

[airtrooper]

JB
I believe it might well be from a large group he purchased to the same soldier.

[castagain]

I saw these wings years ago with the mentioned provenance, long before they were offered for sale. There are other Forum members like JB and Johan who are experts on SAS insignia, and I would take their opinions as the last word on an item like this. I believe the wings to be original. Just my opinion, but I thought I should speak up, for the good of the order.

Best regards,
Donovan

[Monty Cassino]

The provenance on them, which sounds very good, is an added extra to the price i believe.....look good to me.