Canadian Veterinary Corps. Or not...

[Badger306]

Greetings!

When I first saw these collar badges the Canadian Veterinary Corps immediately came to mind. However, I can find no other example that includes the letter 'A'. The reverses also appear to be filed, so I'm thinking counterfeit on both counts.

The wrinkle is that these have provenance to a WWI nurse's collection, which includes a few other Empire/Commonwealth items. That nurse died from influenza and is buried in England. That said, the provenance is a little sketchy in that we don't have full information other than to indicate these were among her "things". I suppose they could have been added to the group post-war easily enough...

So, curious if anyone's seen other examples or if it's agreed these are fakes.

Cheers!

[Phillip Herring]

I don't think that they are fakes. I think you have a pair of scarce badges.

Phil

[mike_vee]

Can find photos of Gaunt examples but they have E/W lugs .

[Bill A]

The Canadian Veterinary Corps used the CVC at the beginning of the First WW. Later it was changed to CAV. The collars appear to be a variation of the later, with CAVC used in the cypher.

[Badger306]

Gentlemen, thank you for your comments.

Mike, I'm curious about your reference to the Gaunt badges. Would you mind sharing a photo you found? Bill's observations align with Brooker, who was my first stop on checking into these badges. Brooker includes Gaunt badges with east-west lugs in his Veterinary Corps section, however, they only have CVC letters. Tiptaft also had collar badges similar to Gaunt's. Later, Gaunt had a design with CAV, however, this was superimposed on a maple leaf and eliminated the beaver.

These having CAVC and the fact that they are not a left/right set also had me wondering about authenticity. Seems like a lot of effort for a one off, but, there it is.