Covid Acquisitions
 

Lockdown seems to have severely hampered the growth of my VTC collection, with no attendance at any of the fairs or meeting. However, whilst the quantity is down, I am very pleased with the quality of what I have managed to pick up.

I've been looking for the Corps of Volunteers Artillery Regiment, KK1693, for years, and then two came up at once!

The Fleet Street branch of the AVF is not well known, but does appear in a picture of a collection in the IWM.

Kingsdown is a sought after badge, and although mine is damaged I'm still happy to have it.

Simplex came through the Forum, and is another fine badge.

Walsall was in an auction lot of damaged badges, and has it's lugs missing; they'll get replaced when normality returns!

West Kent is not a badge I was even aware existed, but it's really well made and I'm very happy with it.

The other Kent badge appears in Ernest J. Martin's 1938 article in the SAHR Journal. Whilst similar to the Yeomanry collars, the ends os the scroll turn upwards, as they do on other Kent VTC badges, so I am happy with that, too.

Finally, there is the NAV Transport Corps. I'm not even sure is this is a VTC badge, so any information on this bage gratefully received!!

As always, if any forum members have VTC badges that I do not, I am always interested in acquiring them.

Best regards, Tim

This new book may interest you:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/17815581...v_ov_lig_dp_it

Thanks!

Wasn't aware of this, but right up my street!

Tim

Tim,

You have done well!!!

Some rare badges there for sure.

regards

Congratulations on some excellent finds. I think that your VTC album is an absolute inspiration and it is an excellent reference source.
Cheers
James

Thanks for sharing, Tim. Well done!
Regards, John

I love the WKVF badge Tim.

Out of interest, I have a number of unidentified horse collars and knowing that just about every public body in Kent wore one I'm interested to see you've nailed down one of them.

Attached is a card and you can see the same pattern here which I have in matching pairs of bronze, whitemetal and silver plate including a pair of Gaunt marked ones.

Thank you all, Gentlemen; your comments are much appreciated!

Keith, It's a long way from "nailed down", but nonetheless this is a badge that I feel is not out of place.

Martin's article was written in 1939, so although not contemporaneous is still many years closer to the era the badges were worn than anything we research / produce now. It is therefore highly likely that such a badge did exist.

Martin clearly describes it as a cap badge, but it is quite small. Some VTC badges were small, though, so that does not rule it out. Mine is on NS lugs, so perhaps more collar that cap, but, again, there are VTC cap badges on NS lugs.

Mine is brass, rather than white metal, which might be a contra-indication; most Kent VTC badges were white metal. However, Kent Police (and every other uniformed service in Kent, as you point out) have a long history of wearing this type of badge as a collar, and usually white metal / silver. This is why I'm leaning towards non-police.

My 'quick check' has always been the scroll. Mine has just the central piece, with the ends rolled upwards, as does Martin's. The same as pairs 5, 6 and 7 down the LHS of your card.

Most similar badges attributed to the police or yeomanry have either the scroll ends extended into two shorter outer scrolls, with no text, and / or the scroll ends rolled downwards. You have examples of all of these, at the bottom left and top right of you card. Without definitively identifying or attributing any of them, I can say that they are not the same as Martin's example, and therefore not VTC.

Looking at your three pairs of similar badges, I very much like the top pair, 5th down. The big issue I have is that they are a pair, so clearly collars, and Martin say's it's a cap badge. That said, there are other examples of collars being used as OR cap badges, so both could be correct! Old instinct (rather than documentary evidence) would have me tending to rule out pairs 6 and 7, thinking they are probably police, but I really don't know!

Thanks, and best regards,

Tim