I was fortunate to have recently picked up this lovely, relatively untarnished SAS para Dress wing made with silver and gold bullion thread. I believe it is similar in style and design to Pattern No. 17681 which was issued in 1962. It is padded and weighs 4.8 gm. This style of wing has been discussed by the Forum before. If you are signed-in, the reader may wish to view airtroopers album, SPECIAL AIR SERVICE / SAS, specifically picture 99 at:
https://www.britishbadgeforum.com/fo...ctureid=113365 (DSC00457)
Notable characteristics of the earlier Dress variants are:
- The 3
parallel vertical lines in the upper chute (as opposed to these lines focusing at the peak)
- The collected lines at the bottom of the chute extend
below the wing.
- the upsweep of the wing tips does suggest post-war manufacture
If you only looked at the back (with glue residue), you might be inclined to date this to being of war era or early post-war manufacture, at least in my experience. In private correspondence, RCAF Mike has suggested that this type of British Manufacture wing backing did exist well past the end of the war so maybe it could date to 1962?
A few questions to the Forum. Is anyone aware of an Official Pattern for Dress wings which existed
before airtrooper’s example dated 1962? Was there in fact, immediate post-war dress wings in this bullion style? Could this wing possible date to the late 40’s or 50’s? Thank you for your thoughts and please correct me if I have made incorrect assumptions.