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  #1  
Old 06-07-15, 04:00 PM
DavidSH DavidSH is offline
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Default WYR Cap Badges - Manufacturer

I have a WYR cap badge (I hope I've attached 2 photographs): -
- ‘silver’ horse piece (upper)
- brass “West Yorkshire” piece (lower)
- 2 eyelets for fixing the badge to the cap
- upper and lower pieces are joined with 2 tiny rivets (i.e. not soldered or brazed)
- the digit ‘4’ is stamped onto the rear of both component parts

I’m hoping you may be able to help me with information about the likely place of manufacturer/ year of manufacture of a particular cap badge.
To the best of my (very limited) knowledge this badge was manufactured between 1898 and ~1914. It would help in a family history mystery to know more about this badge.

I’ve been told by a staff member at the Regimental museum in York that: -
(i) he’d never seen this method of joining the 2 pieces
(ii) in WW1 the bright silver horses were bronzed to make them less noticeable
(iii) the use of eyelets to fix a badge to a cap was changed to the use of a slide during WW1

Questions
(i) Does the use of rivets to join the upper and lower parts reveal anything about where/ when it was made?
(ii) The digit ‘4’ has been stamped onto both the upper and lower components – does this mean anything?
(iii) Given that the horse on this badge is bright silver, could it have been bronzed and then have had the bronzing removed after the war?
(i.e. Or do you think it was never bronzed?)
(iv) Is it definitely an officer’s badge or do I need to have the metal of the horse checked to see if it is silver?

Thanks
David (new member)
Attached Images
File Type: jpg WYO Cap Badge Front (sml).jpg (72.1 KB, 50 views)
File Type: jpg WYO Cap Badge Rear (sml) (640x457).jpg (105.4 KB, 55 views)
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  #2  
Old 06-07-15, 05:18 PM
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manchesters manchesters is offline
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Hello,
What you have is a typical officers silver and gilt undress cap badge worn from c. 1898 - 1960. No way to tell one way or another really.

It was never bronze, those are Officers Service Dress (OSD)cap badges, made in bronze to start with.

The issue of loops V sliders applies only to other ranks cap badges, not officers.

The '4' is merely the manufacturers aid to match up the correct componants.

regards
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  #3  
Old 06-07-15, 05:25 PM
Alex Rice Alex Rice is offline
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Hi David
As mentioned, officers badges continued to have loops for fastening them and still do. Often the silver/gilt badges were privately purchased and they were sometimes made by jewellers so unlike the O/Rs badges there was no hard and fast rule.
I've never seen the use of numbers to match up the parts but then I haven't seen a great number of officer badges so I can't make an assumption based on that. The one this that is fairly certain is that it is very unlikely that it was made by one of the bigger manufacturers of officers badges like Gaunt, Jennens or Firmin.
Cheers,
Alex
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  #4  
Old 06-07-15, 06:50 PM
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davidwyke davidwyke is offline
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Hi David

Welcome to the forum!. I don't like to contradict the Regt Museum but I agree with the two previous posts.

Your badge is definitely an Officers badge but I think it would be very difficult to put a date to it, unless a Forum member is aware of dates for specific construction methods employed by various manufacturers.

As already stated, your badge was never bronzed. Bronzed badges were worn in a different order of dress (Officers Service Dress).

Also, as stated, the slider information is incorrect, this did relate only to O/R's badges.

I can't recall seeing a West Yorkshire Regt badge with numbered pieces but I have occasionally seen them from other regiments.

David
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  #5  
Old 06-07-15, 07:16 PM
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Deejayuu Deejayuu is offline
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David,
welcome to the forum. You can see a few examples of the various Hanover Horse and scroll if you look in my West Yorks album
http://www.britishbadgeforum.com/for...hp?albumid=175

I think all your questions have been responded to which i would agree with. I think you may have been given a bum steer by the museum. Many of the `staff` are actually unpaid volunteers helping out their old regiments. The Museum also contains the 4/7th Dragoon Guards so the person you asked may not have been familiar with the badge construction. As stated before it is a common officers undress cap badge. With the detail to the back i would suspect it was made very late in the regiments career, if you look at my album the similar officers badges i have illustrated are Victorian / Edwardian with a much different back. The reason the components were riveted rather than braized i would suspect it to avoid damaging the silver and gilt plating which do not react well to the extreme heat of braizing.
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  #6  
Old 07-07-15, 01:27 AM
DavidSH DavidSH is offline
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Default WYR Cap Badges Manufacture

Hi to Simon, Alex, David and DeeJay,
Thanks for your welcome and I was amazed to see such helpful responses coming in so quickly.
The owner of this badge lived a very responsible life in Australia from about 1923 until his death in 1962 BUT, after he reached Australia, he changed his surname to Stanlake and never explained his childhood/early adulthood except to say he was in the WYR and had served in the Boer War and WW1.
His 4 children are all in their 80's and still do not know who their father really was (they believe that in WW1 he was most likely a sergeant in some form of administration role and probably given a temporary officer's rank). He did leave a further (possible) clue by including the name "Wentworth" in each of the children's names (but there are no Wentworths on the WYR WW1 medal role).
Thanks again
David
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  #7  
Old 07-07-15, 07:09 AM
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leigh kitchen leigh kitchen is online now
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I have a heavy, (cast I think) badge with slider, the yellow metal scroll is riveted to the white metal horse, it has the remains of a bronzed finish.
Could be the museum has an example that it used to wrongly "identify" the badge in question?
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  #8  
Old 08-07-15, 03:33 AM
DavidSH DavidSH is offline
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Default WYR Cap badges

Thanks Leigh - I have a much better idea of the history of these cap badges now.
Could you describe how the bronzing of the horse appears?
Interesting that your badge is riveted - at least one of the manufacturers used this method of fixing the components together.
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