Leicestershire Reg cap badges

[GriffMJ]

Originally Posted by Alex Rice

Hi Griff
I just saw the post with your 'fat cat' badge. I'm sorry, but I can't say I like it. I think every badge I've seen with sweat holes has had them symmetrically placed. Yours looks like they have been drilled as an afterthought and are badly positioned, I'd be a bit worried about that. Maybe Andy could offer an opinion on that?
Cheers,
Alex

Hi Alex

Its not my badge Its a "Fat Cat" Leicester Cap..... its a known type.

[Alan Y]

Hello Matti,
Thank you for confirming the colours and the accuracy of the badge. It is quite a while since I’ve had the badge and sometimes it’s easily overlooked as to the origins of items obtained over the years. However, I don’t recall ever buying or being given any cloth badges as I was more interested in cap badges and other items as a boy, so I am assuming this was part of my family’s items.
Regards – Alan Y

[Alan Y]

Hello Martin
Thank you very much for your information, I was talking to my uncle this morning, and he has no recollections of the badges from his youth, so perhaps his mother, my grandmother, kept them to herself, although he does recall there being two framed manuscript type documents, presumably from the War Office, which always hung in the home before they moved after WW2. Sadly she died in 1949 followed shortly afterwards by her second husband, my grandfather, both of whom I never met. I suppose as my mother was the eldest sibling at home at the time, she received these and they were kept in the attic until I ‘discovered’ them as a boy. I was told I could keep the badges as I was then beginning to show an interest in collecting military items, but on no account could I have the medals or plaques until I was older. My grandfather was in the Northamptonshire Regiment as was my grandmothers other brother, who was in the 1st Battalion, and he died on the 25th September 1915 and is named on the Loos Memorial. On this basis, I imagine the bimetal Northamptonshire badge belonged to either of these. As you might be interested variations of the Northamptonshire badge which I noticed from your Forum reply, I will add this at some point, but as a brief description, it has a slider, bright white metal front and tarnished back, no sweat holes or ‘Northamptonshire’ impression marks behind the banner and a darkish coloured brass banner.
I cannot remember the thread on the Forum where I read about plated badges, but the sender, as I recall, said that many people had badges plated for keepsakes or possibly to wear as a memento, so perhaps someone had a small business and offered this service for a few pence ?
Thanks to your research, I have now added another name of badge maker I had not heard of before, i.e. Gladman & Norman, so thanks for that. I will accept that it is probably a later badge and at least be happy to know it was officially made in England rather than by a ‘mystic son of the east’ !!!
With regards to the Gaunt badge, I have read quite a bit about the maker’s name appearing on badges and as yet I have not completely understood it. As I have gathered so far, I have presumed that anything bearing the name followed by a full stop closely followed by London in small lettering to be a modern, perhaps 1970’s ? re-strike using original dies. Therefore I imagine these to be of little value. I did not realise the Gaunt B’HAM mark also indicated a re-strike, but as I have a few with this mark, I will have to look at them again. I wasn’t surprised that the third one could be a recent badge as it certainly didn’t look old enough to pre-date the Royal Leicestershire title of 1946. Once again, at least the badge is a British one although perhaps of little value. I will keep them both as examples anyway.
Sorry to have been so long-winded and giving you a lot to read, but I am very grateful for your very informed comments –
With thanks and regards – Alan Y

[Alan Y]

Hello Alex
With reference to the reply I sent to Martin above, I cannot as yet find the thread where I read about the plating of badges, but it is on one somewhere, I have read so many in the last month or so, it is easy to lose track of them. I am sure from memory the writer remarked that many people had their badges plated either to wear as keepsakes or perhaps brooches and so maybe someone set up a small business offering this service to make a few pence in the hard times between the Wars ?
As you also say, though, it would be an interesting line of enquiry to see if any of the individual battalions had a different badge to the normal bimetal or economy brass version. If so, then it would probably be the 6th or 7th Battalions, but they could have been in any other of the Regiment’s battalions during training.
Even looking at the photograph I included, through a magnifying glass, it is difficult to tell if they are bimetal or not, but I have noticed the third seated figure at the right appears to be wearing a slightly different style of badge, notably in the area above the lower banner and the ground below the tiger it appears to be voided, but this could simply be as it appears on the photo. I have included an enlargement of this for a better impression.
Thanks for the reply – Regards Alan

Aug06_02.jpg

[Alan Y]

Hello Bob
I have measured the badge and overall, the white background cloth measures 4 inches by 3 or 100 by about 76 mm. The Tiger stands at about 2 inches and is just under 3½ inches at the widest point below it. The front of the cloth is quite a coarse material, with a few signs of possibly moth damage and slightly off-white and the back of the badge is covered with a finer, linen like material to cover the stitching or embroidered design, and appears to have been fixed with adhesive as there is no sign of stitching around the edges.
The green of the photographed image is slightly lighter than the original as far as my laptop shows it, and the yellow is probably also a bit paler, but generally it is not too far from the badge. I also noticed looking at the image again today, that the white mark on the rear foot which looks like a claw is not present on the badge, so it must have been a piece of something on the badge when I photographed it originally.
The green and yellow threads are quite thick, the yellow being slightly thicker than the green and the black lining thread on the face, claws and legs appears to be normal black cotton thread.
I would be grateful for any information you find about it – Regards Alan

[ncc]

i believe these were stitched on to the front of the sports vest,hence the white background. pre ww2.
Bob

[Alan Y]

Thanks Bob
That's certainly something I would never have considered, although I did think it was the wrong colour for a battledress badge - Regards Alan

[badjez]

With regard to the cloth tigers previously mentioned, I believe there are at least three versions:
a) woven onto khaki cloth. This was the regimental badge of the TA and subsequent RA Regt after conversion. It was also worn unofficially by the regular bn as a badge on their winter hats whilst in Korea.
b) Printed, of ww2 or immediately post-war vintage.
c) A woven man-made fibre version worn by the ACF until c1970's. It is made in facing pairs. The colours are a silver green on black- the scan looks more silver than green!

I won't put measurements etc on the forum as they may be used to produce copies.

Attached are scans. The first picture of the printed badge isn't mine and I cannot recall who sent it. The other are from my collection.

Regards, Stephen.

[ncc]

the 3 tigers you show have no relevance to the cloth tiger in the thread.
the cadet badge is approx 3/4"x1 3/4" ,the one worn on the cold weather cap in korea is about the same size and the printed 5th batt. is usually 1 3/4x 1 3/4".
Bob

[badjez]

As cloth badges had previously been mentioned I feel there is relevance.

When these badges start appearing from Pakistan we'll know how they got the sizes! I'm not going to confirm if your measurements match mine or not.
Please don't make it easy for the re-strikers.

Stephen.