1st vol battalion the wiltshire regiment

[manchesters]

Alan,
You have misunderstood the reply.

He is referring to the 1st VB Wiltshire badge that this thread is about.

regards

[Alan O]

OK. I am ambivelent about that one.

[Peter Brydon]

Sorry,

I thought we were still talking about the Wiltshire badge, someone must have been convinced ( even possibly mistakenly so ) about the badge to pay that sort of price.

Alan,

I don't disagree with most of what you say but the badges made for the Royal Regiment of Gloucester and Hampshire, and the proposed badges made ( I think by Gaunt ) for the Reconnaissance Corps but not adopted ( as shown in one of the MHS Bulletins ) come to mind as being badges made but not worn.


Peter

[Alan O]

Peter,

As Firmin made badges for sale to officers privately it's quite possible that they made a 1VB as a sample not appreciating that they would only ever get orders from the 2nd Bn. As such it should be unique.

Why lugs and not blades though? Anyone have a 2VB one to compare?

Alan

[49lassiepen]

Alan posted some 2nd vol battalion in my album
The officer cap badge has a strange combination of fittings When I purchased this badge I obtained opinion from 2 very respected collectors [ my mentors] both are now deceased I still have the correspondence from 1 of them L.A [29/9/1986] who said he was certain this was typical of 1900-08 and said the badge was genuine as did the other person
Fitting lug N blade S

David

[FMT600]

Originally Posted by Peter Brydon

I have said this before and make no apologies for saying it again, after many years of collecting ,I have come to the conclusion that there are no experts just collectors with a bit more experience than other collectors in certain fields.

One can come to an opinion on an item based on years of experience and after consulting all the books and ones peers and then find there are people who do not agree with your conclusion.

At the end of the day it is up to the individual to decide which items to include in their collection. I have had items that I have weeded out after owning for years when for whatever reason a doubt has arisen and I have let items go years ago that with hindsight ( and more knowledge ) I should have kept.

This is the fascination and frustration of the hobby.

P.B.

Peter,

I could not agree with you more so, as a former member once said on a number of occasions no-one is an expert on every badge, no matter what they like to think (or words to that effect), a statement I could not fault, particularly when we see some of the clangers some of the so called mainstream reputable dealers offer up for sale.

FMT600

[49lassiepen]

FMT 600 I agree with you 100% -no -one is an expert on every badge no matter what they like to think[or words to that effect] All one can do is read all the units histories you can ,look at other collections ,have a very large ref library on all insignia ,correspond with other knowable people spend hours /days looking at museum archives and then my may have a rough idea - have you tried this it may help you in the future

A good example is Alan O research on otc badges where I am certain he spends many hours finding new information /and disproving other
David

[Alan O]

You might be amused to know that I 'disproved' myself last week. I had previously thought that a School CCF was raised in 1951 with no preceding cadet unit and hence what confident there was no pre-CCF badge.

I then found an obscure account of a schoolboy who had been in its school cadet corps for the 2 years that it had briefly existed in WW2 - fortunately they had worn regular Army badges so I was not totally wrong.

[FMT600]

Originally Posted by 49lassiepen

FMT 600 I agree with you 100% -no -one is an expert on every badge no matter what they like to think[or words to that effect] All one can do is read all the units histories you can ,look at other collections ,have a very large ref library on all insignia ,correspond with other knowable people spend hours /days looking at museum archives and then my may have a rough idea - have you tried this it may help you in the future

A good example is Alan O research on otc badges where I am certain he spends many hours finding new information /and disproving other
David

Its funny what people tend to write when they see a member with only a few posts here on the forum, as a re-joiner I can say that I have taken your ''have you tried this it may help you in the future'' a little tongue in cheek as it did amuse me when I read it as the old Army phrase ''being taught to suck eggs'' immediately sprung to mind, of course no offence intended on my part if your remark is simply meant to be helpful as all the points you make immediately before it are of course very valid and many years ago when I was a novice collector that's what I did (and for that matter continue to do) in my own study and collecting fields, not that I hold much faith in what military/Regimental museums have to offer as unfortuantly they tend not to employ subject matter experts these days and invariably seem to mislabel items with curators who just look at you blankly when you point out the error to them.

FMT600

[49lassiepen]

Always try to be helpful in an posts and by posting photos of small ''bits '' of my collection for others to see
David

[Keith Blakeman]

This Worcestershire VB badge is also completely wrong. When the Wiltshire badge was questioned I racked my brains to try and think what other Regiments' VB badges would have a crescent scroll to no avail. It would appear they were specifically knocked up to attached to anything with a circular centrepiece.

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/1st-Vol-Bn...item58cf002280

[KLR]

"I have come to the conclusion that there are no experts just collectors with a bit more experience than other collectors in certain fields."

I have been studying, researching, cataloguing and publishing Roman coins for over 30 years - but I have never collected them.
Museums are not all bad, they contain a vast amount of information, not just in objects. I'm using my museum experience in my hobby - collecting and studying KLR badges ! To that end I spend a lot of time going through the archives of the WO, TF associations, regimental papers, manufacturers papers etc - and then I look at examples in various public and private collections.

I don't know if I'm an expert, I just enjoy what I do - at work / coins and home / badges.