BSAP badge date?

[MarkMcM]

Gentlemen,

I assume 60s or 70s on these cap/collars, or maybe horrible reproductions?

[altcar73]

As I understand it this pattern was worn for many years, and following UDI and the imposition of UK sanctions, the quality of manufacture seemed to suffer. They are a fairly common badge and I would not have thought there was a need to repro. them. Those shown are more than probably issue items poorly made.

Dave.

[MarkMcM]

Awesome! Thanks Dave!

[davidcushworth]

They were worn up to 1970 when they were replaced with a different design, though they would have been worn after that date.

[PeterMc]

I'll defer to the real experts here but would like to add two points.

1. My example is stamped Firmin London to the rear and has fairly long or prominent lugs to the reverse.
2. When in Salisbury (Harare) in 1981 I bought a mounted set of Rhodesian Army badges. All have a flat or poor quality reverse and all had the short stubby type of lugs as in your image.

I had originally thought that my (1981) set was genuine unissued material but I have since heard that they were stamped out for the souvenir trade, currency being much needed at that time.

[davidcushworth]

When I joined the BSAP in 1969 we had this type of badge.
The design of the badge was changed rather dramatically in 1970 when Rhodesia becomes a republic, most notably the shape of the shield.
Badge were then made by Reuteler and had that distinctive mounting loop.
Towards the end of the 80's badges were made by Kariba molding, which were total crap and can be easily identified.