Blackened Cap Badges
 

Hi All,

Does anyone know when the practice of blackening cap badges started?

I know it was done by units in Northern Ireland but was that the start?

The reason I ask is because I have recently seen a WW2 era brass cap badge with what appears to be the remenants of something to blacken it, could that have been period correct, did soldiers blacken their cap badges during WW2?

Thanks a lot,

Michael

Soldiers at Gallipoli blackened their cap badges by using burnt rope.
A temporary finish but none the less an early use to prevent glare giving away their presence to the Turks.

regards

When I served we used weapon paint. I can't remember the technical name for it. Parkerization paint ? Something like but spelt incorrectly though.
Andy

Burnt rope and creosote is what I understood was used.
P.B.

Ours came issued in a 'bronzed' finish.

Michael,

Whilst I’m unable to provide you with a definitive answer, I can tell you that on the 5th November 1914, the 1st Bn., London Rifle Brigade, landed at Le Havre, France. Sometime during their one day and one night train journey from there to St. Omer, they had blacked over their white-metal cap badges. So in terms of the Great War, we can see that this practice was adopted extremely early on.

Source: ‘A Soldier’s Diary of the Great War’ by Captain Douglas Herbert Bell MC.

JT

Hi Andy, Think it was called Suncorite, certainly remember it was the stuff our Sterling SMG's were painted with.

regards John

Cheers for that.
Andy

Thanks for the replies everyone, so it's entirely plausible that a WW2 cap badge could have been blackened.

That answers the question, thanks very much.

Michael

You haven't mentioned the obvious - there were number of rifle units whose cap badges were officially blackened by the manufacturers!

I have several badges that obviously have been blackend at one time that aren't meant to be, I picked up a grenadiers badge a long time ago that had been repeatedly painted although about half was missing, it seemed to have atleast 10 layers on it as you could count them a bit like tree growth rings and underneath was a used badge.

Michael,

May I ask which badge it was?

JT

I believe that some Home Guard units also made a habit of blackening their cap badges.

Hi JT,

It was a Military Police one. It didn't have much on but there was definitely traces of what I thought was black paint on the front and back of it.

Thanks for all the comments everyone.

Michael

I've now got the badge I was looking at so I thought people might be interested to see it.

Now I've got it and taken some better photos of it it's easy to see it has definately got some paint on there.

Michael