Officers Service Dress Badges OSD

[Rob Miller]

I have been sorting through my Devonshire Regiment Officers badges to make a new album but I have a couple of questions first.

These 3 badges have very similar fronts, in fact I would say they could be made in the same front die, but the backs are all different.

1. Which of the three are cast and which are pressed/struck?

2. Which of the three are OSD rather than full dress or another type of uniform?

3. The third one has the stumps/remains of bendable blades, so is it a cap badge or a collar badge?

4. The first two are marked J&CO for Jennens, would you also attribute the third one to Jennens or has someone else cast this badge from a Jennens example?

All thoughts welcome.

Rob

[Alan O]

1. Which of the three are cast and which are pressed/struck? Number 1 is cast

2. Which of the three are OSD rather than full dress or another type of uniform? OSD was bronzed badges

3. The third one has the stumps/remains of bendable blades, so is it a cap badge or a collar badge? It maybe a cast copy taken from a cap badge with blades,

4. The first two are marked J&CO for Jennens, would you also attribute the third one to Jennens or has someone else cast this badge from a Jennens example? Cast from an original.

All thoughts welcome.

Rob[/QUOTE]

[Rob Miller]

Thank you for the reply Alan.

My experience is that very few Regiments used bronzed buttons and rank badges on Officers Service Dress uniform, so OSD is actually referring to the uniform rather than the insignia? Are there any Regiments who had non-bronzed collars as standard on OSD?

And did OSD go out of use before the change from Kings to Queens Crown?

Rob

[Alan O]

OSD is the uniform. Originally bronze badges were introduced for it when it was introduced in the Edwardian era.

My grandfather was Devons in WW2 and his OSD collars were the large sized ones in bronze.

[Rob Miller]

Badge one above was cast and badge two was struck, was the front die universal for these two processes or are these two very similar dies possible made from a master die?

Rob

[KLR]

An interesting post - I've been doing the same classification with my (KLR) collection.
Officers Service Dress (OSD) - and by implication the bronzed badges - was introduced by Army Orders (A.O.) 8 of 1902.AO 54/1947 made the officers bronze badge obsolete, but they were certainly worn beyond that !
The first one looks like a proper cast OSD – but the J&Co stamp is new to me – all the ones I’ve ever seen are as that on your second badge.
I thought at first that your second one was an OSD scrubbed or polished down to the brass, but on second thought I wondered if it is a struck OR badge. Yes, I know that “Jennens only made officer’s badges” but I have a couple of KLR badges that I suspect are J&Co OR badges !?
The third badge looks like a ‘theatre made’ cast badge.