Thoughts on This Book

[Home Guard]

I have been thinking about getting a copy of this book for the information on he WRNS and QARNNS badge information.

"Insignia of Royal Naval Ratings, WRNS, Royal Marines, QARNNS and Auxiliaries"
by E.C. Coleman

Does anybody have it and what are your thoughts about it's value?

Thanks,

Terry

[Guzzman]

Morning Terry

This book has it's faults but, to be honest, what insignia book doesn't? But I like it and have it in my reference collection. He has actually published two volumes - one on officers rank insignia and this one on ratings insignia (including QARNNS, RM, RNXS, etc. as stated in the title). I have them both. I think I can guess what particularly attracts you to this volume!

Some people have criticised these volumes because where no examples of badges exist other than in old photographs he has reproduced them via cut and paste. Personally I see nothing wrong with that.

It contains a lot of information that can't be found anywhere else and, as such, I really recommend this book. There are very few volumes on naval uniforms and insignia and every one has some small fault or other. None are 100% perfect but this is one of the better ones. So go ahead and buy it!

Regards

Pete

[Mike B]

Ditto to Guzzman (Pete's) thoughts

[1664]

Every collector’s book has problems, no one knows everything but this book is spectacularly dreadful.

The cut and paste images are poorly done and mislead, pretty much all of the badges depicted are available in public or private collections but they take time and effort to track down and negotiate access to. I spent eight years negotiating for the images in “Personal Distinctions”, it was frustrating and expensive to achieve but if you publish a book like this you have an obligation to accuracy.

It’s riddled with inaccuracies in dating and descriptions of what some of the badges are for. We are blessed with access to digital archives that collectors even just ten years ago didn’t have, but almost no new research is included in these books.

I also bought both volumes, I’m not certain they pass the better than nothing test. In the modern age of digital access to information they are a throwback to a time when we had to fill in gaps in knowledge by guessing - we should be beyond that now!

[Home Guard]

Thank you gentlemen. I will give thought to getting it, but as I have nothing on RN badges, it might still be helpful to me if it shows the various badges and tells what they are.

Terry

[nbroadarrowz]

No book is perfect, now or in the future. Books are produced by humans and humans are inherently flawed so nothing produced by humans will be perfect.

As the author of 5 books I have made mistakes, the goal is to lessen the mistakes and to do the best we can. Yes, as the post by 1664 states, we now have an increased duty to accuracy due to the large amounts of information and accessibility to that information that is now available to us. In a way the bar is set much higher now. I have always found that collectors and museums are more than happy to assist with access to collections.

Yes there is a lack of published information on naval badges. I do my own research and learn a lot more that way. I now have a spread sheet of naval non-substantive badges that contains the stores code, description, colour, position worn and the issue denomination. Seeing the information in a spread sheet shows up patterns etc. This list is based on pre 1948 NZ naval stores lists. As we know there is a large amount of cross over.

I am currently writing my own book on New Zealand Naval uniforms, clothing equipment and badges 1923-1948 and will be including individual photos of all the badges I can find as well as the spread sheet.

Barry