Royal Fleet Auxiliary buttons

[sailorbear]

Originally Posted by btns

Until now we have only been looking at R.F.A. buttons.
The "War Department Fleet" with its W.D. and R.A.S.C. buttons have officers' designs only as well.

That's an interesting point, though I think it may be possible that only officers had that type of uniform, civilian ratings of the WD/RASC and later RCT fleet, I believe wore navy blue battle dress or blue seaman's sweaters, I'm not sure there were any formal senior rate uniforms that differed from the junior rates?

Regards

Tony

[Guzzman]

Originally Posted by GTB

Would I be amiss in thinking that only one universal design was produced for Officers and senior rates, and that the difference would be in manufacturing quality? To be more precise, the RFA button examples I have are Officers (spunback). If a crimped example is located then that would clinch the matter.

GTB

Differences in quality between buttons produced for officers and senior rates might have been the case in the past but not any more. Since RFA senior rates began wearing the same design of buttons in the mid-1980s I am sure that they would have been EXACTLY the same button. With all the pressure that exists on defence budgets I don't think it likely that they would have gone to the expense of having an entirely new stock of buttons manufactured - especially when they had stacks of buttons of the same design in stock already. Economy was probably the reason that they were issued with the same design in the first place!

Pete

[GTB]

Originally Posted by btns

Until now we have only been looking at R.F.A. buttons.
The "War Department Fleet" with its W.D. and R.A.S.C. buttons have officers' designs only as well.

Bearing in mind that RFA is a naval organisation and WD Fleet / RASC is army, albeit the buttons of the latter have a distinctly maritime touch.

GTB

[GTB]

Originally Posted by Guzzman

Differences in quality between buttons produced for officers and senior rates might have been the case in the past but not any more. Since RFA senior rates began wearing the same design of buttons in the mid-1980s I am sure that they would have been EXACTLY the same button. With all the pressure that exists on defence budgets I don't think it likely that they would have gone to the expense of having an entirely new stock of buttons manufactured - especially when they had stacks of buttons of the same design in stock already. Economy was probably the reason that they were issued with the same design in the first place!

Pete

I have noted that these buttons and the WD/RASC ones, although spunback, to my mind have an inferior quality of 'gilding' meta. There is no comparison to the recognised gilt spunback officers buttons of the past.

GTB

[Guzzman]

This has turned into a really interesting discussion and I have managed to find out far more than I expected.

Thanks to everyone for responding and sharing their knowledge. Special thanks to GTB for his photograph and his usual knowledgeable comments. I sometimes think that the combined knowledge of the members of this forum far exceeds that of the staff of the national naval and maritime museums (I've virtually given up making enquiries to them as they seem to know so little about even the most basic items!).

Once again, many thanks.

Pete