curved RCA shoulder titles

[Infanteer]

I apologize for this basic question but I was unable to find an answer online... what vintage are small curved mid blue with red "R.C.A." shoulder titles? I suspect that they are early post war before the full "Royal Canadian Artillery" on dark blue titles were introduced but since I have never seen them on a uniform in a photo (that I can recall) I'm not certain of the vintage. I purchased a small group of Second World War vintage artillery insignia, div patches and group photo that included a pair of these small titles.

If there is previous thread on this subject I would love to see it but my searching was unsuccessful.

[Infanteer]

My image host is still down.... is there anyone who can post a photo for me?

[Bill A]

Hi Stephen, Please send me the image and I will post it.

[Phillip Herring]

I wonder if they were worn by home defence units.

Phil

[Bill A]

The archive research I have been doing indicates that abbreviated coloured embroidered corps shoulder titles were issued in Canada starting in early 1942.

[Infanteer]

Sorry guys, somehow I missed that there were responses to my post. Anyways, I am using a new photo host as the other seems to be permanently offline.

[Bill A]

Hi Steve, I am just working through the documentation from archives on the embroidered titles in Canada. It appears that the corps titles for wear in Canada were abbreviated. For example, R.C.A., R.C.A.S.C., R.C.E., etc. Note: Not all corps used an abbreviated title. There was no official issue abbreviated title for the Canadian Intelligence Corps, (from the documentation, I don't think the C Int C had an embroidered title issued until after the war), and the Canadian Dental Corps. And, several corps did not have fully spelled out titles. Overseas insignia policy required that Canadian units be clearly identified as Canadian on their titles. So the titles approved and made overseas were mostly spelled out and included CANADA or CANADIAN etc. For example the Royal Canadian Ordnance Corps was spelled out for the overseas issue, while the titles approved in Canada were R.C.O.C. IF they wore the abbreviated title overseas, they also had to wear the worsted CANADA. So, R.C.A.P.C. only had the abbreviated title during the war, and wore that in combination with the CANADA overseas.
As the war continued, there was a lot of movement back and forth from the UK to Canada. This complicated things, as the overseas titles came back to Canada and continued in wear. On the other hand, the abbreviated titles when worn by soldiers sent overseas, were supposed to be taken down, and they were issued with the proper overseas pattern. After 1943, these were the printed patterns. Embroidered patterns were privately acquired.

[Infanteer]

Interesting, I was not aware that abbreviated titles were primarily only used in Canada. So these were likely used in Canada which makes sense as the grouping also included some 8th Div patches. Thank you very much.