|
Most of the badges that instructors could purchase following the completion of a training course are quite common (ARPS, LARP & LAGC) - except for the almost impossible-to-find C.A.G.S. Instructor variant. The below L.A.G.C. (Local Anti-Gas Course) locally trained silver badge was recently sold on eBay for £80 (incl. shipping); quite a high price for this particular badge. If you can find one, the price of the rare CAGS badge must be in the low- to mid-hundreds.  L.A.G.C. Civil Defence Instructor Badge
0 Comments
This interesting badge recently sold on eBay for £127.50 (including shipping). It is silver hallmarked and includes two scrolls—one for RESCUE STATIONS and the bottom one for L.A.R.P., which I assume can only refer to Local Air Raid Precautions (as seen on instructors' badges). The National Archives has a record for "North Midland Coal Owners Rescue Station Co Ltd". It appears they had rescue squads and ambulances that could attend to incidents at collieries in the area.  North Midland Coal Owners ARP Badge This rare badge recently sold on eBay for almost £200. It features the coat of arms for the city of Nottingham and is a Fire Guard instructor's badge. There are two more common diamond-shaped Fire Guard badges issued to instructors: a gold-coloured, nationally trained Fire Guard Instructors Course (FGIC) badge and a silver-coloured, locally-trained Local Fire Guard Instructors (LFGI) badge. The 'LFGI' on this Nottingham badge is, I assume, for a locally-trained instructor.  Nottingham Fire Guard L.F.G.I. Enamel Badge The below ARP Malta badge was recently sent to me and the owner was pretty sure it was a fake. My gut reaction was to agree with them going by the look of the front casting and the rear. The spate of reproduction/fake ARP badges we saw a few years ago use a specific type of modern pin and catch but the one here does use a more original-looking pin (the catch is missing). I contacted a re-enactor in Malta with an interest in the island's wartime Civil Defence. She told me that silver-hallmarked badges were available, some island-made examples were also made, possibly in the dockyards. These were simple sand cast examples. An original badge would be pressed into the sand and cast with available metals. The rear would be quite plain and smoothed off. Whether this would also create the striations seen below is currently unknown. An original silver Maltese ARP badge was previously posted on this blog.  ARP Malta Badge  Original Malta ARP badge made on the island Previously, I requested information about the "Hitler Hate Club" badges. I had a recent reply from Richard Briggs which I thought worthy of a standalone blog rather than just leaving as a comment on the original post. "I am aware that nearly 600 of these badges were found in an attic in a house in Jersey. A friend of mine bought the entire collection from the chap that found them in or around 1998. I presume they were local to Jersey residents and once occupied by the Germans were hidden away. He sold most of them over the years and I have the last remaining 47. There were mainly half moon buttonhole backed but there were a few pin back which we assume were for ladies."  Hitler Hate Club badge - with a possible connection to the Channel Islands |
Please support this website's running costs and keep it advert free
Categories
All
Archives
January 2025
|
RSS Feed
|
|
Copyright © 2018–2024
|
