Graham,
The construction of the badge does indeed look very old. It may have been put together "in house" and worn like that. You will probably never know unless a photo of it being worn surfaces. Its still an interesting variation which I'd keep in the hope that some confirmation or otherwise comes along. I personally am loath to "ditch" such anomalies just in case they are genuinely worn items. But, there are a number of less than honest individuals on eBay (one fire brigade dealer in particular) who is forever cobbling together spurious fire brigade badges and selling them at quite high prices, so it does pay to look carefully at the construction of the badge before pressing the bid button.
Dave.
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