Reviewing the discussion about this badge, it points out the difficulty that reproduction and frauds are causing. Questioning the authenticity of the Cdn Para Corps badges should be part of the acquistion process. Before one lays down the cash for this badge (and usually a lot of it) they need to be convinced they are getting an authentic badge. Coogan is prepared to, I am not.
Bill, just a note about the record of production of badges in Canada during the SWW. The Dept of Munitions and Supply managed the contracts during the war including developing a list of companies capable of making certain products and allocating the resources / materials for each contract to the companies when the contract was awarded. The potential companies were either asked to tender or in some cases where they were the only concern able to complete the job, they were straight out awarded the contract.
At one point in the war brass was in short supply and Munitions and Supply limited the availability of the alloy to only those products they deemed necessary. Bullets beat badges in brass. This led to the experiments with steel and plastic badges. (Many other materials were treated similarly or even more strictly. Nickel, some types of wool and cotton that were also subject to strict controls. The monel metal made with a nickel alloy was declared a strategic material and the Sault Ste Marie and Sudbury Regt and the Algonquin Regt were required to make their badges from a white metal alloy.) Allocating the resources to a manufacturing concern was approved and managed by the Dept of Munitions and Supply, with the ensuing paper trail. If there was sub-contracting there would be a paper trail for the possession of the dies and the allocation of the materials. The dies for the Canadian Parachute Corps were property of DND and would have to be accounted for. There is nothing in the record to indicate the dies / materials for the other ranks badges were handled by any other concern than Roden's or Breadner's.
(Ken also quotes the same passage you have re the Battalion's feelings about the plastic badges.)
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Res ipsa loquitur
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