KC Officers Cap Badge Collection.

[thursdaychris]

Hello Chaps,

I have in recent days reached a milestone in my KC Officers collection, there are no longer any gaps! I must admit, however, that I have cheated a little bit, I do have a dozen ORs badges as temporary gapfillers. These are in place of eleven, gilt and silver/gilt badges and just the one bronze, that so far, I've been unable to find. All of these are from regiments that changed their badges during the KC period and understandably, perhaps, there just aren't so many of them around.

The OSD bronze badges have generally been the easiest to locate, with one exception, that of the Royal Northumberland Fusiliers, these do exist, "neil s" has got one, and he's posted pics of it! I did, of course, go for all of the low hanging fruit to begin with, leaving all those that are hardest to find, or rather expensive, until last. One of these being the Seaforth Highlanders, I have seen one of these that I would like, it was made by Henry Tatton in Edinburgh, and retailed by Macdougalls of London, and hallmarked in Edinburgh in 1915. This, methinks, would be an ideal companion for my A & SH badge, which has the same maker and retailer, and is hallmarked 1914.

I have for the time being, however, gone for the cheapest Seaforth's badge that I could find, the stags head is actually a silver one, but the coronet/cypher and the scroll are quite obviously mismatched items. This does seem to be the case with most of these, that I've seen, even the Tatton piece, mentioned above, although both items are marked silver, they don't really seem to belong with the stags head, I'm assuming that the original parts would have been maker marked and hallmarked just the same?

[Alex Rice]

Lovely collection, thanks for sharing. I agree that your Seaforths is likely made up from mismatched parts, but nice anyway. In my opinion, judging by the patina on the scroll, that part is likely a QOH or Highlanders badge scroll. I have an example with the same shiny, plated appearance from the late 90s.
Cheers,
Alex

[cbuehler]

Very nice indeed! Regarding the Seaforth, they were 3 or 4 part badges as you know and frequently seen incomplete. We can be assured that parts were sometimes lost in service and replaced with something that was not an exact match. Not something they would fuss over.
As all of these were made by many manufacturers and jewellers, there is no standard for markings or fittings, and not all parts from the same badge were marked, and quality varied considerably.

CB

[thursdaychris]

Many thanks, chaps, a three or four piece badge is guaranteed to be a bit tricky, I guess!

[Alex Rice]

Yes. I also have one that I managed to put together over a number of years. I'd be perfectly happy with your one too.
Cheers,
Alex

[thursdaychris]

Well, it'll be something else to search for, Alex, I've already found a separate L cypher and another rather scabby coronet/cypher, but it's a different scroll that I want mostly. The scroll that came with it is a bit too glittery for my liking, the caboshed stag, however, is great, so I'm off to a pretty good start. Someone, somewhere, will have a spare silver scroll in their spares box, and, with any kind of luck, I may be able to persuade them to part with it!