[cw2311]

Gents,

As promised, here are a few pictures of several Scully production 1st Canadian Parachute Battalion officer cap badges. I do have a couple unmarked cap badges as well that I wanted to add to the pictures but just can’t find them at the moment.

Even though all these cap badges have some varying minor features, they all have a couple things in common. They are all slightly convex in their basic shape and all have the standard 5 rivet construction. The position of the maker mark may vary slightly from badge to badge as you can see from the pictures and you will also come across a couple styles or sizes of lugs. A larger thicker style lug and what I have found to be the more commonly seen version, which is the fine or smaller loop style lug.

They also produced screw posts which was just another way of allowing the cap badge to be fixed to the beret a little tighter for wearing. The officer cap badge is much heavier than the standard brass NCO version and therefore had a tendency of drooping on the beret if you didn’t have any homemade stiffener inside the beret behind the cap badge.

As most are probably aware, the brass base of the cap badge was gilded prior to the silver overlay being pinned through the base. If you attempted to apply heat after the badge was gilded, such as soldering or brazing, then you would remove or damage the gilding. The cap badge in the picture that had the lugs removed and replaced with a pin and latch belonged to Ken Arril. It is actually a good example of heat removing the finish. This being said, excessive polishing can also remove the gilding.

Take a close look at the pictures posted, can you see the silver overlay protruding from the backside edges of the badge? Probably not. They have all been hand crafted in such a way that they fit quite nicely over the brass base for that clean ‘finished look’ from either side. They all have finished edges, none of them being rough or jagged.

I hope you enjoy the pictures.

Cheers