New Zealand Cyclists Company

[dumdum]

Hi Steve

You beat me to it but I think that your photos are SO much better than anything I could produce!

The RD marking is to be found on the ring that is soldered to the back of the crown but ONLY on early badges. My guess is that the "faffing around" to stamp each ring got a wee bit too much for them.

The early rings appear to be made of nickel silver whereas later ones are often brass.

Your Auckland RSA badge is C.M. PAGE and this is Charles Macintyre (?) Page a watchmaker and jeweller. From memory, he died around 1938 and was possibly a Mason.

The earlier maker was Reuben Watts but he appears to have stopped making the badges at some point and Page did a new die for the badge.

I've actually seen at least two versions of the Watts badge (the frond of the "ponga" tree covers the trunk).

It might interest anyone following this post that the Auckland RSA badge was originally fitted with a small piece of "swallow-tailed" red ribbon. I found a mention of this in a "Quick March" article on ARSA and also have found photos of men wearing this ribbon but had no idea of the colour until I read the piece!

My own example has therefore been "upgraded"!