looking for reference material...

[jonnynation]

hi guys... pretty quiet here on the canadian part of the forum!... hope everyone is enjoying the festive season...

anyways, im wondering if anyone can possibly furnish me with reference material relating to modern canadian cloth insignia (post war)... an example of what im looking for: http://members.shaw.ca/jollytar/Ratings/Badges.htm

ive seen a poor photo copy of a similar article in "sentinal" (?), which i think was a forces magazine?... does anyone have e-copies they could please kindly share?...

ive also used the current forces website for a lot of information to base my collection on, and it was pretty good apart from the errors, confusing and missing bits...!

would much appreciate any help!

sean

[regimentalrogue]

An alternate online resource:

http://jfchalifoux.com/

JF Chalifoux military collection

Royal Canadian Air Force - Canadian Army - Royal Canadian Navy - Canadian Armed Forces

Welcome to my website,

This is my personal collection of official and unofficial crests, badges, pins, etc, of the Canadian military. It also includes Canadian military participation out of Canada and from other countries in Canada. My goal is to represent the military history present and not fading away with time.

All my pages are best view with a screen resolution of 1024 by 768 pixels

Here is a count of what I have listed on these pages. It is updated when new items are added.

In my collection 10053.

In my Traders 400.

In my Wanted page 1859.

[jonnynation]

holy smokes, thats perfect... i hadnt seen that website for a long long time. JFC is a member here, non?... good work that man!

[Bill A]

Hello Sean, There is very little published print material for Canadian post war insignia. There is the series of books by Thompson, and a couple of sources from DND, but that is about it. None of these illustrate the cloth shoulder titles post 1968.

The return to shoulder titles / slip-on titles in the 1970's-1980's is poorly documented and there are virtually no sources or catalogues for that series of insignia. When I started research on the combat title booklet, there was only a handful of collectors lists floating around, and very little information about the combat titles themselves. Even less was available on the CF titles. Units pretty well did what they pleased within the rough guidelines provided by the Directorate of Ceremonial. There is little if any documentation in the form of approvals, general orders, routine orders for the "gold on CF green" series of titles. For example, in the mid 1980's every unit was supposed to have a series of 5 cloth shoulder titles composed of an abbreviated "bright gold" merrowed edge title, an abbreviated "bright gold" non-merrowed edge for DEU slip-on, "old gold" abbreviated merrowed edge titles for workdress, and some units had "bronze" merrowed edge titles for workdress. In addition to the abbreviated titles, there were the "long" style titles (full names) in "bright" and "old" gold. However not all units, even regular force, followed this scale of issue. They often only acquired one short title and one long title. Other units ignored the "gold on green" directive and made full coloured titles, often smaller versions of the previous battledress titles.

Then the real mess came with the Garrison dress uniform. Some units simply wore the CF title on the smock, others had a title made specifically for the order of dress, while most units took the fully embroidered cadet titles into use.

With the withdrawal of garrison dress, the Canadian forces only had need for embroidered abbreviated titles for the DEU shirt sleeve slip-ons. The long style titles have been replaced by the metal shoulder title on the DEU, and the working uniform is the cadpat, with only one abbreviated title being worn. There are three styles of cadpat uniforms, the Temperate Woodland (TW), Arid Region (AR), and Winter/Arctic (WA). There are abbreviated titles being issued for the first two patterns of cadpat, but I have not seen any titles for the WA. The AR titles are supposed to only be made for units deploying to Afghanistan. However some reserve unit titles in AR are floating around.

In my research on the workdress / DEU period (1980's-into 1990's), I have found that units procured many patterns. Unless one was in the unit at the time, and issued the titles at the time, the fact the issue was made is unknown and unrecorded. One regiment may have far more than the two or three abbreviated titles. And variations creep in. The Ontario Regiment, for example has titles with and without periods after the ONT. Some of the titles from the 1980's period are virtually impossible to acquire.

[jonnynation]

hi Bill,

thanks for the info, excellent summary. although you miss mentioning the AF blue type of cadpat titles, worn on TW uniforms?... thought that i should point that out so that you know im paying attention!

im really looking forward to seeing whats going to happen with the GC website for insignia, hope its being updated and not missing cause they deleted it! if it is updated, its going to be a useful resource hopefully showing the state of the realm for current insignia...

i think it`d be interesting to see more documents on the market regarding modern insignia, like your combat title one you put together. ive ended up making my own with pictures (things get confusing otherwise!) for trade badges and boonie badges of my collections. titles are a lot easier to list, and so like most people im sure i maintain lists similar to your book. its cut down on mistaken purchases hugely, and helps me manage things a lot better. do you think it would be worthwhile cutting them down into a smarter format like yours (fairly paper heavy documents at the moment!) and putting it out there?... perhaps members here would be interested in forwarding images to fill holes, and make it a bit of a forum effort?... i know you`d mentioned something like it happening here a while back...

regards, sean

regards, sean

[Bill A]

Hello Sean, I believe the airforce titles are TW pattern, and even though collectors will classify them separately, they really are TW uniform insignia. Splitting hairs a bit here.
What booklets did you have in mind? One that would be interesting is a trade badge booklet, one that includes army, airforce and navy.

[marway_Jaime]

Hi Bill & Sean, One tool that I've seen some police patch collectors use, is a portable DVD player with the images & documents burned onto a disk & then 'played' back to see what you have etc. I don't know if you'd have the time at a busy show like Etobicoke to use it, but at a smaller, slower shows it could come in very handy. It would also be a neat tool to use to show others your collections at the shows.

Jaime

[jranrose]

..