Hi Rob,
Many thanks for your thoughts on the guide. I understand your concerns that this could be a huge project and some have already indicated they will not contribute to it. The project is not about me but the forum as a collective. I am willing to co-ordinate the project but it needs many members to contribute to it for it to be a success. There is no need to cover every badge as that would take a lifetime. Instead the participants can agree what they want to cover in a similar style to the example I gave. For example the Royal Artillery could be covered by the regular badges and territorial badges with maybe just some text for volunteers and militia with general notes similar to the style Lawrence Archer used.
It's not the first time I have encountered the worry that fakers can use the notes to get better fakes. If we do nothing they will still improve by obtaining genuine examples and copying them. They may in fact use standard references to gain some of their information. If you search through the forum you will also learn how to fake. To not do it would be giving in to the fakers.
The material we need for a badge guide is actually here at our fingertips on the forum pages but is fragmented into different threads. That is why I would like galvanise members to bring a assemble this information together so that members have a decent badge reference.
We know from discussions that the standard references we use such as K&K; Gaylor; Cox; Wilkinson; Cossum; Brooker etc have errors or omissions and so we need a better guide. The guide too will become out-of-date as the years pass so the format used needs to able to be edited.
Of course the final caveat is that unless members come forward to help achieve this project it's a non-starter!
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