Hi,
Just wanted to say to be careful of Italian stuff as a lot of the Italian WW2 equipment patterns were used post war.
A good very general guide, as is touched on earlier on here, is that post war field gear / uniforms badge backings etc were olive green. Whereas wartime ones, including WW1 were more of a field grey colour. An example where you can easily make an error is with the water bottles. Same water bottle pattern used in WW2 and post war, but war time ones had field grey covers and post war ones were olive green.
Also with field gear the straps are generally leather for ww2 and webbing straps for post ww2 (eg: Italian helmets).
Finally be careful of things which say: R.I. meaning Repubblica Italiana which is post WW2, whereas war time stuff was marked with V.E for the King: Victor Emanuel III.
It's fine if you want post WW2 stuff, but beware of people passing items off as WW2 at a higher price when it's in fact from the 50s or 60 s.
I know this is not directly linked to this badge, but it's useful to know...
Best rgds.
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