Silver RA staybrite badge.
 

Is this silver coloured badge for regular army or reserve forces instead of the normal gold colour?
ThankJohn

John, are we sure its 100% silver - in the photo its looks very, very faded gold.

I have this and the small beret badge (1st pattern) RA cap badges. There are also silver collars.

I have struggled to find an identity for them. I was told once that they may have been a Scottish rwserve or cadet unit, but git no further than that.

If an error, a curious one. These (truly) silver coloured ones do crop up occasionally, but rarely.

I'll post my pics when I get home.

Bess

Yes it is silver coloured. It came from a closed army depot in Wales, the guy I bought it off rescued lots of badges from there including the Manchester's in my other post.
Cheers,
John

John, my 1st pattern RA anodised alluminium, service cap and beret examples - made silver;-

Very interesting thread. Were the silver colored ones for the band or some other purpose?

Bess, Love the way you have them stored in an album and am going to see what I might be able to do with some of my badges that just sit in a box.

Terry

Such items are generally poor quality control in manufacture as no such badge was a sealed pattern and certainly not for a bespoke band badge.

Both large and small are made by Gaunt who are not known for colour errors. London Badge & Button are generally the main recidivists there. Colour errors are generally found on 2 colour badges, where one coloured anodising has been applied but the badge - for some reason - has not had the second colour applied in the process. These often end up on the market - presumably out the back door of various factories and workshops.

There are colour variations of badges that were known worn which do not have a specific NSN/CB number we know that - let alone manufacturing variations and often complete die differences for the same badge.

The beret badges I have, show signs of wear as is common with RA beret badges. The larger does not, again what we expect in large RA badges as they rarely leave the service cap and are kept in good order accordingly - so is as we would expect to find.

Truth is we dont know if its a colour error (an odd one a its a total colour difference and not a partial manufacture error badge) or something more unusual and unit bespoke etc. Probably and error, but to find both sizes AND collars . . . hmmm . . .