Gurkha shoulder title - ?
 

I recently acquired this pair of GR shoulder titles from an ebay seller. He was selling a few genuine buttons/titles of 3GR - from around the 1920's and this pair came with them.
The 3GR title is from my own collection but interestingly there was a pair of these being offered by the same seller from the same source. They had the makers name J H Johnson & Co. Aligarh UP stamped on the reverse ( the same as my example ) - I've photographed the 3GR example as the font matches the GR ( albeit the GR is larger - 17mm in height ).
I think if the GR titles had been offered on their own I might have passed - but given some "provenance" to the 3GR and the similarity of font to that used by Johnson - I thought I'd take a "risk". I'm aware that there's no examples recorded of a shoulder title with just GR and no number preceding it - but was curious enough to buy them.
Having shown them to Ashok he speculated that they might be a reserve Btn - before they were allocated a number ( but it was only a "guess" ) - it also occurred to me that during 1916 there was 3rd Btn raised for the 4GR bt due to a clerical error it was posted as the 4/3rd GR - I wonder if the titles could have been related to this confusion ? Will probably never know for sure .

Hi Tim,
There's been a couple of sets of these on E bay recently. I don't think there Gurkha. Sadly I cant ask John Chapple any more. The only remote possibility is for the short lived 11 GR. Although the example I have is 11G but officer size.
Steve

Hi Steve - the two sets were from the same seller - and I contacted him as to where they had come from - he could only confirm that they came with the 3GR items - which I know is no guarantee of Gurkha provenance - but combined with the unusual font which I know to be used by Johnson & Sons on another 3GR title - I'm still leaning towards "possible" Gurkha - at least until someone comes up with a better alternative . I know Ashok considered the Garhwal Rifles
but then dismissed it and thinks its Gurkha.

Tim,
I considered Garwall as well, but dismissed it when looking thro my reference books.
Maybe one day we will find out.

Steve