Gilded ASC Badges???

[thursdaychris]

Hi All,
I've recently started a small collection of ASC/RASC insignia and I'm curious about the unvoided ASC O/R capbadge. The one example that I have and all of the others I've seen images of, appear to be gilded, and consequently seem much newer than they ought to. Are these badges genuine items as gilding does not seem appropriate to me on what I understand to have been "economy"versions?
Regards Chris.

[mooke07]

Hi Chris,

I know what you mean by the gilded look of economy issue badges but if you go to my post on Metal Composition Analysis and the corresponding album you can see that the economy issue badges are distinct in their higher copper content. There is a considerable variation of the colour of these badges and so many older badges will darken with a patina of age, many offered for sale have been cleaned as well.

My wife's great grandfather served with the ASC possibly at Gallipoli and I was recently given his WW1 trio and have started a fledgling collection of ASC badges which I will post as an album one sunny day.

There was a very good article on ASC variant badges in Crown Imperial that I could send you if you like, just PM me with your email address.

Good luck with your collecting, cheers Dean.

[thursdaychris]

Hi Dean,

Many thanks for your thoughts on these badges but certainly with the one example that I have, it is some kind of gold coloured coating as you can see where it's missing. I live on the coast and anything I get that's too shiny goes outside on the kitchen windowsill for a week or two in the sea air.This ASC badge is getting the same treatment and where the coating is still present remains unchanged.

I recently discovered that my late father spent WWII in the RASC, he never ever spoke to me of his wartime experiences, but I did know that he had served in the Italian Campaign. I did, as a child, fondly imagine him storming Monte Cassino, but I guess that he was actually engaged in rather more mundane activities. It has however given me an excuse to start badge collecting again in a small way, who knows where this might lead.

Regards Chris.