Kimberley Regiment badge
 

Hi All
I picked up this KR badge variation recently. It seems to be blackened brass / bronze and the brooch pin is original. Does anyone have any info regarding this style of badge? Vintage? Thanks. Cheers,
Alex

Hi Alex,

I have one exactly the same but I don't know the background. It does seem to be fairly common though for KR cap badges to have brooch pins.

regards, Iain

Hi Iain
Yes, I think you're right about the pins, it's more the blackened bronze I am interested in. All the other KR badges I have are gilt or gilding metal finish, this is the first bronze one.
Cheers,
Alex

Hi Alex, I also have a blackened one, maybe WW2? Regards Andrew

Alex

I also have one, it would seem a batch of them were made like this. The darkening/browning is common to many SA WW2 Badges.

Brian

Thanks guys, I'll put it as WWII then. I thought maybe the pin would indicate either a badge for a slouch hat or pugaree for a pith helmet.
Cheers,
Alex

Hi Alex,
Quite a few units used sloach hats during WWII especially back home in the Union and during training. I have seen photographs of Medical corps and Engineers in sloach hats and also seen WWII SAEC badges with pin clasp fixings. The chocolate brown coating is definately WWII vintage. 1934 dress regulations talk of coloured flashes to be worn on both sides of the polo helmet and on the right side (if I remember correctly) of the sloach hat.

Steven

Have attached a copy of instructions ordering the oxidising / darkening of badges for interest.

Hi Dudley,
Thats an ausome document, thanks for posting. This is what gets the juices flowing from my aspect of collecting... always great to see official request, numbers and timelines related to badges.

It was interesting to see that this request for brown bronzing was placed as early as 1932 and that it was to be carried out by the SAAF workshops post badge production/supply. I see the numbers are relatively small, but then the PF was not that big. I wonder whether the numbers relate to all insignia in stock at the time or half of the insignia, that way keeping a stock of gilt and gilding metal for issue.

I also assume that the ACF units requested similar procedures to there badges, but wonder if it was done at same time or rather closer to wartime. I have seen most of the ACF units with brown bronzed badges in an old collection.

Would also be nice to see at what point the work was actually carried out and when members started wearing the bronzed insignia.

Thanks
Steven

Ps. If you or anyone have more documents like this related to insignia supply and wear, please share. Maybe we could get an album together with scanned images of official documents.

Pss. I see the SAEC is not present on the list of PF insignia... I wonder why this is as I see the SAEC was part of PF in the 1934 dress regs. Could it have been an oversight by the compiler?

Thanks for this doc, great help,
Bill:)

Dudley

Great doc, always great to see these official items where we can definately put a timeline on the Browning instead of speculating.

Brian