My GVI Hospital Chelsea badge

[arrestingu]

...seems to be a hard one to find ...
this is my one ....
thanks
Steve

[Luke H]

Not an original badge I’m afraid.

[Phil2M]

Looks OK to me, what makes it a fake?

[Luke H]

That it is from the fake die. Note the wonky jewels and rounded letter ends.

[Phil2M]

Which jewels are the wonky ones?

[Luke H]

All of them pretty much, an anaemic central rectangular jewel, misaligned lozenges left and two very low rectangles either end.

Afraid both in your albums are also fakes. They’re from the Marsh catalogue.

These two are genuine, one with 11mm Gaunt mark other the large 1950s era mark which has almost a gilt finish. There are some differences also with letter sizing and proportions of the central foliage.

[Phil2M]

Bloody Marsh, does anybody have a time machine? I knew one of my ones was a fake, like the OSD QC badge for reference.

Back on wants list it goes.

Cheers.

[Luke H]

Sadly he certainly knocked out a lot these and at first glance they’re pretty convincing especially the ones which are good strikings with some apparent age now.

Highlights the worth of the forum as I’m sure lots of people think they’ve got a real one of these but actually don’t.

I read on the forum, courtesy of Bess who actually met the QM, that these badges were worn by the permanent staff at RHC of whom there were just 18. So logically they should be pretty scarce I would imagine.

[Home Guard]

Luke, you continue to amaze me with your knowledge and at catching such details. Have to hope you've been at this a very long time to have learned it all!

Terry