WWI Royal Naval Division Cap Badges - Third Addendum

This Third Addendum brings additional information on the subject of WWI Royal Naval Division Cap Badges. Very recently appearing in the British and Commonwealth Military Badge Collector’s Forum was a discussion of probable additional contracted manufacturers to Gaunt “plaqued” examples, specifically the flood of fakes which occurred in the early 2000s.

In addition to the previous extensive discussion and definitive imagery provided by acknowledged expert John “Paddy” Newell, another forum expert Luke H has presented a group of Royal Naval Division badges which were not struck from any known set of fake dies. He mentions that in the first edition (1971) of John Gaylor’s book, Military Badge Collecting, every RND cap badge, other than the Drake Bn, were not struck from the Gaunt dies.

Given that premise is true the following imagery presents a whole new set of badges, unique from those manufactured by Gaunt which are both original and obviously genuine. Collectors who have relegated RND badges previously evaluated as fakes/copies, et al., to the “dust bin” and still have them, may do well to compare them to the newly found “genuine” badges displayed in this article.

With full acknowledgement and expressed gratitude to Luke H each of the badges presented show the Gaylor book image, as well as both the front and back of each badge. 

RND Howe Battalion (Specific features: oval 'O' and distinctive voids.) 

RND Anson Battalion (Specific features: very short left strawberry on coronet.)

RND Nelson Battalion (Specific features; straight N. Diagonal sail creases.)

RND Hawke Battalion (Specific features; arrow-headed bird and stamped lugs.)

RND Hood Battalion (Specific features; Lop sided scroll ends. Distinctive beak.)

Previously this blog has presented a series of articles which the reader can refer to on the subject; http://arnhemjim.blogspot.com/2011/08/wwi-royal-naval-division-cap-badges.html

http://arnhemjim.blogspot.com/2011/08/wwi-royal-naval-division-cap-badges_28.html

http://arnhemjim.blogspot.com/2016/05/royal-naval-division-cap-badges-addendum.html

https://arnhemjim.blogspot.com/2019/06/wwi-royal-naval-division-cap-badges.html

Readers should feel free to copy images contained in these articles in order to make side-by-side comparisons with the images contained in all of the articles.