BADGES OF HONOUR
EVERYONE collects badges at some time in their life: scouts and girl guides for attainment; travellers for Hard Rock pins; Butlins badges, Tufty Club badges, Blue Peter badges, Golden Gavels… you get my drift. Where you stop buying them generally depends on the depth of your pocket and the height of your passion.
For archaeologist Professor Antony Charles Thomas, his passion knew no bounds. Although he has been described as a towering figure in the world of academia, his other, perhaps greater, love was collecting military memorabilia in general and for more than 70 years, military cap badges and shoulder titles in particular, amassing more than 15,000 examples from around the world.
What the auctioneers are promoting as the biggest singleowner collection of cap badges to be offered in living memory, it will be dispersed later this month in 500 lots, some containing around 100 pieces. Estimates range from £40 to £1,500. The sale is expected to raise more than £100,000.
Cornishman Professor Antony Charles Thomas CBE DL DLitt FSA FRHistS FBA (1928-2016) was an academic steeped in archeological fieldwork, but other than his family, some fortunate curators and a few collectors, few knew him as either a badge collector or military historian.
Stephen Wood, curator of badges and medals at the National Army Museum, from 1973 to 1983 and Keeper at the National War Museum of Scotland from 1983 to 2000 says he “brought to his collecting the same forensic skills as guided his archaeology, carefully and assiduously curating his collection as if he had chosen a different career path and become a museum curator”.
“While the nucleus of this remarkable collection must be the 40 or so lots of the military insignia of Cornwall, its enormous extent and global spread is wholly indicative of the professor’s complete lack of parochiality, in his collecting as in everything else”.
Collection highlights include a gilt helmet-plate centre worn by an officer of the Duke of Lancaster’s Own Yeomanry dating from 1851 estimated at £200–£300, while a group of 96 cap badges dating from after 1881 and representing, among others, the Somerset Light Infantry, PWO (Prince of Wales Own); the East Yorkshire and Lancashire Fusiliers, of which approximately 36 are for officers, carries an estimate of £1,00-£1,500.
A 74th (Dublin) Company Imperial Yeomanry Boer War slouch hat badge with rosette and buttons, will be sold with a fragment of what is claimed to be the first Union Flag to be hoisted in the Orange Free State; shell splinters and bullets kept as souvenirs of the battle of Colenso (1899); a model pick-axe made by a railway pioneer with metal from a ruined bridge at Norval’s Point, the scene of bloody fighting between the British and the Boers and a South Africa 1900 Christmas present tin complete with original chocolates. The lot is estimated at £150-£250.
In the year that sees the RAF mark its centenary, the sale offers an opportunity to acquire insignia from its early days as the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) both British and Commonwealth.
One lot of 65 RFC pieces dating from 1912-1918 comprises officers’ and airmen’s cap badges and officers’ and senior NCO’s collar badges among other items, is estimated at £300- £400, while 12 badges of the Royal Flying Corps (Canada), 1919-23 comprising RFC (Can) cap and collar badges; a CAF pilot’s flying badge and RCAF Full Dress belt clasp are estimated at £300-£400.
Items relating to the Australian Flying Corps include cap, collar and shoulder strap metal badges which carry an estimate of £400-£600, while representing the Polish Air Force from the 1920s to 1945 are Air Regiment, Squadron and cap badges, shoulder titles, rank insignia and buttons, the 18 pieces estimated at £600-£800.