Wet Weekend Musings

[Alex Rice]

Hi All
Actually got a bit of time to play with my collection for a change and was looking through my SA Army badges. It turns out I have 5 variations of collar/beret size 'bokkops':
brass with screw posts
brass with pins
chrome with lugs
chrome with screw posts
chrome with pins

Any others out there?
Cheers,
Alex

[craigen]

Hi Alex

There were also brass badges that had been 'silvered' - unofficial as far as I know but worn that way prior to the chrome badges. Hopefully somebody will be able to explain the background to those.

The lugged version of the chrome beret badge is one that I have not seen before, so nice find there. I do have the larger chrome cap badge with both screw posts and lugs.

As far as the 'brass' badges go, I have a beret badge with screw posts and similar badges with pins, as well as a matching large cap badge, that are all actually gilt badges. I also have one beret badge with screw posts that looks like plain brass but cannot see if it originally had a gilt coating or not, so it would be great if someone could shed light on that.

Cheers
Craig

[Milmed]

Hi Alex and Craig,
There is already a thread on the Bokkop badge. Search the SA Army part of the forum to see what has been recorded.

A quick run down of sizes:
There is a Cap badge with Lugs or screw posts.
A beret badge with screw posts.
Collar badge with lugs or pins
MMD with pins

Finishes were:
Gilt for officers & warrant officers
GM for non officers (rank and file)
Staybrite as an interim finish (early 70's)
Chrome was the final finish adopted c.1974/75

Steven

[craigen]

Hi Steven

Thanks for that; Dudley did post a nice chart previously in that thread.

Was the 'staybright' version general issue or something that individuals had done? I was told the latter a long time ago but have never seen any formal reference to them.

Regards
Craig

[Milmed]

Craig,
I am not 100% sure about the staybrite, but I was also told by some older collectors that it was something offered by a private company and not an issued item.

I find that the staybrite badges tend to chip and peel, so suspect it was a sprayed on coating and its primary function was that the owner no longer had to polish there badges or buttons. I suspect this may be the reason that better quality chrome badges were later issued as standard items from c.1974/75

Steven

[Madziro]

For interest the attached.