B/ham Battalion 1914 badge
 

Hi All,

just curious - these badges seem to be every where. Are they reproduced ?

Cheers, Mark

I believe they have been.

Asked in complete ignorance, but is this a photo of a genuine one or one of the "duff" jobbies?

The 1914 On War Service reissue wouldn't fool anyone and it isn't intended to.

badge
 

This one just picked at random form many for sale on dealer sites just as an example of the badge I was questioning. No idea how many were originally produced, but a lot must have been lost over the years..

Mark

A stash of unissued, real badges emerged in the early 1980s in Birmingham, still wrapped in tissue. My father bought a couple... £5 each...

badge
 

Bargain - over £100 now..

Mark

Interesting. I can pretty much say that this picture is of an original badge and, again just an opinion, but being a vitreous enamel effort, it's more or less guaranteed to be "safe".

The notion of a cache of unused, original badges brings to mind my acquisition of 8-10 original unissued DCM League badges, made by Fenwick, some years ago.

I still have a couple left if anyone would like one of these. PM me if keen!

The '1914' is very different on my example.

https://www.britishbadgeforum.com/fo...ctureid=150288

I can check mine but I think that it has (apart from a small chip to the white enamel) serifed numerals to the "1914", like the last photo.

Possible that there was more than one maker?

For comparison.

Certainly very different.

I'm not sure why there would have been more than one manufacturer given the time scale in question here, unless, the originally contracted company simply could not supply the quantities needed by a deadline date it may have been given.

IWM has one similar to High Wood's with 'serif' date :

"The lapel badge was worn on civilian clothing during 1914 before uniforms were issued."

Attributed to W.J Dingley Birmingham.

The other style was made by H.B Sale Ltd B'Ham.

.

Okay, so two manufacturers of original badges then.