Essex Regiment Officer's slouch hat/pagri badge

[mooke07]

Hi all,

A mint condition Essex Regiment Officers slouch hat/pagri badge 1901-1914 with braid tangs - sold at auction by Dixon Noonan Webb 2001.

Part of a small lot I picked up in UK yesterday. http://www.britishbadgeforum.com/for...ad.php?t=56418

Cheers Dean

[mooke07]

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[mooke07]

DNW original auction tag

[norfolk regt man]

Originally Posted by mooke07

Hi all,

A mint condition Essex Regiment Officers slouch hat/pagri badge 1901-1914 with braid tangs - sold at auction by Dixon Noonan Webb 2001.

Part of a small lot I picked up in UK yesterday. http://www.britishbadgeforum.com/for...ad.php?t=56418

Cheers Dean

Even better than I thought, very nice.

[manchesters]

Dean,

Your haul was excellent and am sorry to have to have told you the Northants Yeomanry is not original.

As for this "Slouch Hat" badge I have some more information that I would like to pass to the forum.

These are the facts as I see them:-

1. Firstly badges of this size and format exist for several (if not all) infantry regiments.

2. All have the distinctive thin blades/tangs to the rear.

3. I have never seen a photograph or an actual slouch hat displaying one of these badges by an officer in an Infantry Regiment. If you think about it, dont you feel they are way to big to sit on a flap of a hat?

So if thats true, what are they?

Well the answer is - Its a Helmet Plate Centre off a Pattern Card submitted to the Director of Equipment and Ordnance Stores.

Typical Pattern Cards for Officers badges include Helmet Plate Centre - which this is- cap badge, collar badges and buttons.

The rear fittings are designed to pierce a piece of thick card and not a helmet plate, hence the blades.

I appreciate the DNW description, but that doesnt make it correct.

Several Military auction houses have sold such items as "Officers Slouch Hat" badges over the recent years and well, they would wouldnt they. As such they would command a very high price compared to a "sample" off a pattern card.

This would explain why there are so few as there were more slouch hats than there was Pattern Cards.

regards

[mooke07]

First class input thanks Simon - I kept the DNW tag but chap I got if from passed it on as a HP fitting to be true to him.

Cheers Dean

[Expat Yeoman]

Have recently picked up examples of the Officers' Glengarry and Slouch hat badges for the Essex Regt from an impeccable source. Shown in my album and repeated here.

I'm with Simon here, yours is from a HP pattern card Dean - but that doesn't make it any less lovely!

I'm told there was only pattern of the Officers' slouch / pagri badge unlike the OR's where there were two.

[KLR]

This question has been aired a number of times. Firstly, I concur with Simon - it is from an officer's pattern card - I examined the KLR 'card' at the NAM and yes it is the centre piece of a helmet plate.


The "pagri" badge - or FSH to be correct - is based on the design of the ORs' HP (also listed for the Universal Headdress = "slouch"). There have been a number of these illustrated on this Forum (I'm still trying to find a KLR one !)

The OR version of the FSH badge is a HPC with a long slider - again, many exist.

A number of people have looked into this matter. Yes, they were authorised in 1903 (not near my files with details at the mo) BUT - nobody has seen any photographs of them in wear (though I have a dim recollection that John Mulcahy found an officer's version on a photograph ????) !

We can't find any cancellation order and the whole exercise might have been an expensive mistake !?

[mooke07]

A good thread thanks all. Always pleased to re-visit topics like this.

If anyone should like my example just send me a PM, it isn’t even close to
my family regiments or King’s Colonials, cheers Dean.