26th Hussars

[Alan O]

Interesting use of the Starr Putney mark as it is only found on WW1 Wandsworth Pals badges. They were a retailer and not a manufacturer and pre Ww1 sold things like umbrellas.

Alan

[Luke H]

Originally Posted by Alan O

Interesting use of the Starr Putney mark as it is only found on WW1 Wandsworth Pals badges. They were a retailer and not a manufacturer and pre Ww1 sold things like umbrellas.

Alan

I agree Alan. Certainly an interesting ‘outfitter’. Plus that lone RAMC! I could have sworn I’d saved photos of it but now cannot find them. It was on eBay a couple months back and bought by a ‘former member’.

Maybe it’s worth merging the threads as we’ve now reached a definite conclusion I feel on this badge?

[Luke H]

That’s really very helpful Marcus thank you, and I think resolves the debate.

The Starr mark is identical to the one on this fake 25th (Frontiersmen) Bn, Royal Fusiliers. It also is straight out the Marsh catalogue.

I also agree that were there a genuine GM badge it would in all likelihood be from the same die as the 26H OSD which has clear differences.

So clearly a fake with an early spurious mark which found its way into Hugh King’s collection, then into a book thereby obtaining legitimacy and exploited by sellers like the now banned Mr Taylor.

Case closed.

[Alan O]

I have always been sceptical of this badge. Possibly the regiment commissioned a couple of designs of badges when they were formed and even had a few made for consideration. Possibly Hugh King got one of these and put it in his book.

Possibly they had a production run done of ORs' badges that were never issued but I doubt it.

In light of the very small number of badges that might exist, and an ORs version is possibly mythical, this is not a badge I would consider pursuing.

Alan

[Luke H]

Originally Posted by Luke H

To date the two genuine Starr marks I’ve seen are on Wandsworth Pals and a WW1 vintage RAMC. So it seems strange this WW1 outfitter mark would appear on a trial WW2 Cavalry badge.

Found it. Knew I’d saved pics somewhere but my memory failed me, it was actually an Army Veterinary Corps.