Quote:
Originally Posted by dumdum
Hello Mike
I was certain that you would have the answer! Many thanks for all that information.
I'm wildly intrigued that they should have numbered the miniatures.
Seeing your lineup of badges makes me realise that I think I have one of those "fob chain" badges (with the loop) lurking around somewhere.
Thanks again
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The "fob chain" badge is sometimes referred to as a 'dangler' but BL advertisments call it a "pendant".
A 1937 official BL price list states that miniatures/tiepins/pendants are "To be sold only to members in possession of the officially numbered Badge".
The numbering/lettering of the miniatures seems to be a Gaunt practice and your post got me checking the various items in my photo . I have now discovered that the Gaunt cufflinks are individually numbered and have the letter
L on them , so if buying it's worth checking they are a matched/paired set.
Here is my theory regarding the post WW2 letters/numbers :
When membership numbers exceeded 999,999 Gaunt adopted the "series" system (same as 1915 OWS badges) and initially used an
'A' then moved on to
'A1' for the small (20mm) badges.
It is possible that on the ordering forms the type/size of badge was indicated by a letter and subsequently this letter plus the last four or more digits of the membership number were used for identification on all items.
I keep having to update the
"British Legion Badges - Letters" thread as more details/letters turn up.
EDIT : I have not seen any miniature items produced by Gaunt from 1921 -1928 that have Gaunt MM but there are unmarked items , all the miniature Birmingham items I have are makers marked but do not have any letter or number.
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