West Somerset Imperial Yeomanry KK???

[Luke H]

I recently purchased this West Somerset Imperial Yeomanry badge. It was a bit of a gamble as I’d never seen one before and the badge doesn’t even appear to be in my copy of KK.

Getting my hands on it I’m confident it’s a good one. It has excellent detail, is die stamped with nice thick edges, has early loops ‘growing’ out of the badge that’ve been pinched. It’s also significantly different to the standard die cast eBay fake (green background) - note the position of the arms and voiding to the tail.

Does anyone have a known genuine badge to compare or any idea why it’s blackened brass? Although I’d like it to be an ORs cap badge I don’t wonder if it’s perhaps an officer’s collar given the colour.

Cheers,
Luke