NZ ASC
 

Can anyone kindly give the significance of ASC badges with voided or solid centres, please?

GTB

Is there any significance? The voided and larger badge is a cap badge and the smaller unvoided one is a collar badge. Collar badges with voided crown do also exist.

Rgds, Thomas

Unvoided British ASC cap badges were thought of as a WWI economy measure, would that apply to NZ ASC?

I think it comes down to time, I have somewhere in my files one of the first orders in 1915 for 3000 NZASC hat badges and 6000 NZASC collar badges.
Taking into account that each badge needed to have each voided section to be drilled first and then hand filed.

Not up to speed on NZ badge production, but British OR's badge voids were stamped out instead of drilled and hand filed. That was reserved for private purchase officers badges.
Perhaps the collar badge voids were simply too small to tackle? Or as you state, simply too time consuming.
What it all seems to boil down to is that it is most likely a production issue, without further significance.

Rgds, Thomas

I am well aware that the larger badge is for cap and the smaller for collar. The significance I am requesting is whether voided and unvoided badges would be reflected by Sealed patterns and whether a set would comprise voided cap and collars / unvoided cap and collars. Also would a time pattern reflect the issue of voided/unvoided badges (which would be the earlier?)

GTB

No

Unlikely

No

Irrelevant.

I believe they are just makers variations of the same pattern.

Rgds, Thomas

GTB, the badges you show are the original designs for the NZASC and followed the post-1911 pattern ASC cap and collar badges, the only difference being the addition of the letters NZ below the garter strap. The collar badges were never voided except for the crowns which are found both voided and unvoided and they always had the space between the crown and the garter, unlike the cap badge where the crown sits directly on the garter. They were issued together as such and although they are distinctly different in design the cap and collar badges in your opening post went together. Although the ASC cap badges were issued unvoided as an economy measure I don't think the NZ ones ever were. Hoot.

The NZASC in 1911 only existed on paper, a British ASC officer was appointed in 1911 to help form the NZASC and four ASC NCOs were brought over from Britain in 1913, but the NZASC wasn’t formed until March 1914.
So, I’m thinking that the officer and NCOs would have worn their British ASC badges with their uniforms and puggarees piped in white.

As to when the first NZASC badges were issued I do not know, the earliest evidence I have found so far is 1915 and manufactured in NZ, so until new information is found, NZ made NZASC collars with un-voided crowns that sit slightly below the star burst, are the earlier badges, and the British made NZASC collars with voided crowns that sit on top of the star burst, are the latter badges.

Are you 100% sure the Gaunt made NZASC collar voided crown was mechanically stamped out and not hand finished by a trimmer?

No I'm not, all I said is that British made OR's badges were mechanically voided. So if these badges were made in the UK it seems highly likely they too were not hand voided. Close inspection will reveal all.

Rgds, Thomas

Thanks all for further detailed contribution to the thread. I am better informed.
I would like to add that my cap badge is apparently an OR's brass piece, however the back has the small Gaunt tablet behind the Crown. Private purchase for an OR?

GTB