['Ticker' Riley]

Hi JT

Many thanks for sharing your very interesting posting about variation in your Queen’s Royal West Surrey badges. As you’ll know I’ve been doing something similar with the Leicestershire Regiment tiger cap badges, though my interest in variation is to do with actual manufacturers’ variants. For me this centres around the artistic modelling of the badges and the characteristic features you get, which in the case of the Leicesters is the distinctive look of the tigers and the letter shapes used in the honour scrolls. I assume that this is what Julian means when he talks about “die characteristics etc.”

Like Julian, I too believe that marked badges, such as those of officers, are a vital part in helping to identify makers’ variants, or types. Obviously variation of fixing, loops (lugs) versus vertical shanks (sliders), variation of metals, all-gilding metal as opposed to bi-metal, voiding and non-voiding of elements, as well as size, shape, position, etc. of sweat/braze holes are also very important, but they are not how I personally categorise manufacturers’ types. For example, looking at your ‘core variants’, your CV4 and CV6 look like the same maker’s type to me.

Anyhow, keep up the good work, the more we can get others involved in studying things like this, the better we should be armed when it comes to deciding if badges are genuine or not. As Julian has already said – “Brilliant”.

Best regards

Martin