bone/plastic welch oddity
4 Attachment(s)
got this for £3 plus P&P as a BIN from ebay and it arrived today, the seller listed it as plastic but in the hand I wondered if it was horn.
I like it, a bit odd and maybe a POW badge? Ps it was meant to be horn in the title, doh |
The Welch
Jerry, a nice item, with the spelling WELCH it is post Great War, possibly a trial model for WWII plastic badges?
Rob |
I thought of a POW badge, before I had read your post.
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I know from what I've been told by an ex-POW that badges were made from melted foil liners from cigarette packets and I've had at least one of these so not impossible that other materials were used.
I was even told that cap badges could be pressed into soap moulds to make them. The same informant told me that the German soap wasn't much good for anything else.... From the colour, I'm going to suggest a reformed composition from Bakelite. This may sound daft, but does it have a curious musty smell to it? This is typical of old Bakelite light fittings, door handles and finger plates, very common at the time. |
Bakelite was another thought, carved from something else seems perfectly likely. In the hand it reminds me of horn, though I will try sniffing it when I get home from work
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Bakelite is often made with asbestos so if its been "reformed" sniffing it may not be a good idea?
Rob |
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Bakelite was a hard, infusible, and chemically resistant plastic, Bakelite was based on a chemical combination of phenol and formaldehyde (phenol-formaldehyde resin), two compounds that were derived from coal tar and wood alcohol (methanol), respectively, at that time.
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Just google "bakelite asbestos" and decide for yourselves if sniffing it is a good way to live a long and pleasant life.
Rob |
Hi
I guess I should have discussed past Bakelite sniffing with my brother the brilliant scientist! One other POW "factoid" that I will mention is that the "kriegies" soon worked out that the more stamps on a document the better. So they would create their forged paperwork and stamp them with rubber stamps cut from pieces of material, usually the sole of a boot, worked with razor blades or chips of broken glass. We should not lose sight of the fact that POWs represented a vast body of talent, men who were artists, jewellers, engineers, etc. before going "into the bag". Carving this lovely Welch badge would have been a "passion project" for someone like this. |
Can't go wrong for three quid, Jerry, very nice.
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thanks to everyone who contributed, it is appreciated |
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