Dewas Junior - police belt buckle

[Khyber]

A recent find.
A slightly damaged belt police belt buckle from the former princely state of Dewas Junior in Central India.
Dewas is unusual among Indian princely states in that it was divided intoa 'Senior' and 'Junior' branch.
The author EM Forster spent 6 months as private secretary to the maharaja of Dewas senior and his account of his time there is a great read in The Hill of Devi.

Hindi script on the buckle reads Chowkidar Deha Police .. roughly translates to rural or village police. J.B. is junior branch, medals, badges and other insignia of the senior branch would have S.B..

[High Wood]

A cracking find and I doubt that many of these have survived. I love these little items that give a window into the past.

I have some numbered tokens somewhere that were given out to workers in the Bombay Docks, probably on a daily basis. There must have been thousands of them and they are practically worthless, but they speak of times gone by.

[CAM]

Agree with High Wood. An interesting trinket

Chris

[Khyber]

Originally Posted by High Wood

A cracking find and I doubt that many of these have survived. I love these little items that give a window into the past.

I have some numbered tokens somewhere that were given out to workers in the Bombay Docks, probably on a daily basis. There must have been thousands of them and they are practically worthless, but they speak of times gone by.

Thanks Simon. There are several varieties of Bombay Docks tokens
The pre-1947 ones with a crown come in various shapes and sizes, as also for the ports of Calcutta, Rangoon, Cochin and I believe there's Colombo as well. They're lovely as very collectable and a few are scarce.
I have a couple of tokens for Bombay Docks pre and post-47