[NEMO]

Good morning , ARH Trevor Bate - the ` mischief maker` back in the dark an distant days of the 1980s There was a militaria dealer Trevor Bate( Paul Laycock may remember him ) who stood the arms fairs elderly gent even back then always wore a base ball cap think his thing was American Air Force items , any way Trevor used to have copied victorian helmet plates rare metal badges / cap badges etc .

Along with all these he had a little folder of reproduction special forces cloth items included S.A.S wings,F.A.N.Y shoulder titles parachute wings Malaya Scout patch and shoulder titles and RFC / RAF wings a rather good Eagle squadron patch.

Now let me state quite clearly to the best of my knowledge Trevor never intended to deceive he sold every thing as space fillers the special forces cloth sold for 4/5 quid it was when other dealers got involved and started aging the badges.

Now the big problem here for special forces collectors is the fact that these early badges although made in Pakistan were of a lot finer quality so when a perhaps less experienced collector handles a set of Trevors badges because they differ slightly from the known copies of today they get excited and presume they have an original.

All I can say is the ones I saw were good but ` just not right` a lot of these S.A.S wings were attached to B.D,S and service dress 20 odd years ago and offered by high end UK dealers often genuinely so they are now well and truly bedded in the food chain....

I would recommend any one wanting to learn more would be to join the WEHRMACHT AWARDS forum and view the british section this was one of the first and best forums that covered british S.F insignia if they old threads exist Trevors badges are shown and discussed



........an a lot of nasty men are gona hate me for writing this thread ...