Hi Rob
Glad you liked the pictures of the doctored Leicesters’ badge, though to be honest I’m not much of a photographer! Still, at least they show what I mean about how a perfectly respectable badge has been deliberately vandalised for no other reason than, presumably, to make financial gain. The really surprising thing about this badge is the Forum member who let me have it had actually bought it from a reputable deal, who had sold it to him as a genuine TF badge. Now I realise that we all make mistakes, I often do, and nobody, not even a dealer, can know absolutely everything about military insignia, but you would have thought he would at least have picked up on the rupturing on the bottom scroll!?
Anyhow, as to your latest thoughts on the plastic Leicesters’ badge without its “Hindoostan” honour possibly being worn by a cadet cops, as far as I understood it only two contingents that were affiliated to the Leicestershire Regiment ever wore distinctive badges, these being the Uppingham and Oakham OTCs, and so assumed that all other Leicestershire cadets units just wore the Regiment’s regular badge with its top scroll.
Whilst I admit I don’t know much about cadet contingents, would they have been issued with plastic badges during the Second World War? If so, would they then have gone to all the trouble of removing the “Hindoostan” honours to make them resemble the old TF badges from an era more than twenty years previous? Maybe, maybe not? As you say, its “probably something we will never be sure about”, but I still personally believe the badge in question is unlikely to be a TA one. I think we will have to agree to disagree on this one, but, whilst not wishing to hijack this thread, I thought I might be permitted to show you the other badge I talked about
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I’ve never heard of a Leicestershire Regiment TF battalion, either officially or unofficially, having a blackened badge. As I said before, when this one arrived the other week it clearly smelt of acrylic paint, which, in my view, has so obviously been applied in order to turn this fairly common restrike into a ‘scarce’ item. In my opinion, yet another example of someone trying to make financial gain, something I have realised we have to be all too wary of, and which, sadly, also seems to be happening all too often.
Best regards
Martin