Quote:
Originally Posted by Chipper
Hi Mike, all interesting and possible possibilities (if that makes sense!)
I lean towards the safety aspect, especially for the standard brass, be it made or modified. The gilt sharp edge ones and the nickel plated ones may be a factory foreman indication, may be a late war/post war private purchase for civilian wear, (like the men's 1915 ones which turn up nickel plated and even chromed) or it may be something completely different...
Below, just for comparison, I have listed the vital statistics of mine:
1) Gaunt Brass 10.5g
2) Gaunt Gilt 9.9g
3) Gaunt Nickel 10.5g
4) Gaunt Rounded 11.1g
5) Wylie Brass 10.8g
6) Wylie Nickel 11.5g
DumDum, if you have a turned down example, I'd love to see it. One probably not that significant fact, is the Gaunt gilt badge is slightly vaulted - looking at it, it's been done post manufacture.
Cheers, Tim
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Hi Tim
Great work! I think that the very slight vaulting (which I'd not noticed before and will try to photograph) is this "trimming" of the corners.
I was going to try to do a drawing of what I mean but if you think of the struck badge (with the raised Gaunt back stamp of their address) like a piece of cheese placed between two pieces of metal.
The backing piece is solid, flat but shaped with triangular round corners to match the cookie cutter that is brought down on the previously struck badge. As the badge is trimmed the edges are pulled down giving rise to the vaulting. The raised letters would then be
flattened as I hope to show.
I also spoke to a friend who at one time worked in small place that produced pressed metal odds and sods.
"Oh yes, a fly press would cut that very easily and one of our big problems was to stop the finished piece bending like your badge..."