[54Bty]

Current sealed patterns are held by the Clothing IPT at Didcot. A master of each obsolete pattern was kept in an archive at Didcot most of these were destroyed in a fire. A second master was sent to the NAM and until recently still were, storage of these patterns is a problem for everyone. The remainder are then offered to the respective museum and the rest, if any, are sold off.

It is not just badges that have master and standard sealed patterns every item has one. Once the five masters and ten standards have been sellected they are kept apart, with only the standards being used for the manufacture of the item.

The pattern will not help with how many were made or how many were issued; they record the following information; pattern number, catalogue number and later the NSN, the catalogue description of the item, the authority file number for the item, the date it was sealed, some times the signature of the person responsible for the pattern and on the back who made them and when. Not all this information is on every card or label, again not every badge gets a sealed pattern if a previous pattern exists it is sometime marked 'to guide for anodised aluminium Cat No' or 'Crown to be St. Edward's. Some of the older Master Patterns have a prototype label that also records the date it was approved by; The Chief Inspector of Clothing, the user, and also for production, the prototype authority (file reference),and proposed designation.

The badge is fixed to the card by a piece of cloth tape which is passed through the card and SEALED on the back with wax and the seal of the Chief Inspector with the shield from the board or ordnance or the Royal Arms. For those of us who have a badge with a hole in the end of the shank or near the top of the shank, then we have a badge that has been made exactly to the pattern, as the hole is for the cloth tape or it is an obsolete pattern. On the more recent patterns the information is on a label and the item secured to it by nylon cord and an MoD metal seal.

Here is an example of a 'Standard Pattern'.