Peter, It sounds as though you have a very interesting collection of Gaunt material.
On the question of officers badges, I wonder if the catalogue actually mentions officer's badges or are there any illustrations that you can definitely identify as officer's. Other makers material I have seen of a pre war date (eg in Birmingham Museum) tend to list only Other Rank's badges as they will have hoped to win bulk orders of these. Officer's badges would have been bespoke items, albeit costing more.
In my own (King's Regt) collection I have a two (out of 8) 1926 Pattern OSDs with loops but only one (out of 7) 1896 Pattern. In each case they are fairly crude and I believe they are wartime (1st and 2nd) productions. Julian
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