Royal Canadian Artillery Badge Modified

For those of you that used to frequent Militaria Collectors Network, you might remember me posting a Royal Canadian Artillery “old soldier’s” badge that had had its detailing ground down to make for easy polishing.

I have recently acquired another example of this practice:





The technique used to flatten down this badge was even more extreme. It appears the badge has been placed face down and hammered flat, then the face polished. The end result is that the badge is pretty much a sheet brass shape. It would, however, polish up to a mirror shine in about 30 seconds flat, and I am sure that was the intention.



The badge came with a grouping from C14356 Gunner Harvey H Macleod (pictured above), who was originally with 2nd Light Anti-Aircraft Regiment, but who seems to have later transferred to a First Canadian Army artillery unit (more research required on that). It has a red backing cut from a 1st Canadian Division patch, and a celluloid former to make the beret sit nicely behind it.




A nice personalised item and the kind of thing I really like to collect.

Rob

Yep, it's unique items like this that are gems in a collection.

Further to this topic of mine, I have recently found another modified Royal Canadian Artillery badge:



This one has had just the mottoes ground off, leaving the crown and gun with full detail. The RCA seems to have had a penchant for altering their badges.

Rob

I wonder if it spread to all branches of service? Here is a picture of a Provost Corps badge, beret is still with the family of the veteran who passed away 2 years ago.

Some units seem to have made this a fairly common practise....RCA shows up quite a bit as well as the Armoured Corps badge with the tank completely grund smooth.RCR also like to make the rays completely smooth and shiny. Camerons of Ottawa,BCD,CDC are a few others that come to mind. I think alot of them have been done on a wheel as simple polishing would take a long time to do. Here is another modification that I,ve seen a few times...the addition of the Dutch coin to a badge or in one other case,a revolver.

This one sits on a 45 dated beret.
Don't know who or why they did this, but i like it a lot.

Thanks for your responses, I find this really interesting.

Michael, I love the RCA picture with the Dutch coin badge. I actually have one of those:



I agree with you, these are definitely ground flat (or hammered flat in the one case). This one of mine has clear grinding marks:

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I remember my mother (of all people) telling me (she was in the British Military Police in the early 1960s), that ground down badges were highly sought after pieces, as they took a much higher polish than those with all their details, and much better than the anodized aluminium crap. She told me she once had a chance to go through boxes of used badges in the stores looking for a nice flat one.

Haplo, I also have examples with a Canadian 1 Cent penny like this one:



This one is hard to see as its so polished, but its a 1941 penny. I can attribute this badge to a T H Johnston, as it came in a group with his RCA ID bracelet and a cigarette case with a soft pornographic photo on the front.

I wonder if there was any significance to the penny, like the date of joining or something?

Rob

Rob wrote:

I wonder if there was any significance to the penny, like the date of joining or something?

Rob

Could well be.
Interesting to find out.
Non the less i really like these modified badges.
Gives them character.

Rob:

Sorry, but my question is a little off topic. Was your father or grandfather a member of the 13th Field Regiment, or is the ID Plate you for an identifier just part of your collection.

Thank You
Martin