Plastics Cap Badges of the British Army
Peter Fuller - specialist in militaria

Army cap badges had to be cheap and were moulded in cellulose acetate. Peter Fuller describes an interesting family of collectables.

In 1941 Britain was suffering from a severe metal shortage due to our isolation after the evacuation from Dunkirk. The government appealed for all scrap metal to produce munitions; pots and pans were collected and iron railings freely stripped wherever they stood. Even today iron stumps can be seen in London’s front gardens.

How could the British Army help? Certainly not by reducing the production of ordnance when thousands of tons had been left in France. Therefore an 'Army Council Instruction' in 1941 authorised the manufacture of cap badges in plastic. All the regular infantry were covered except those where the badges would have been too fragile in plastic because of their design, e.g. the stag antlers of the Seaforth Highlanders. The arms, corps and services, i.e. Royal Artillery, Royal Engineers, Army Catering Corps etc. were also covered but the Cavalry was ignored because of the smaller numbers required, which at that time probabIy pleased its members as they were the self-styled elite of the British Army.

The badges were made in three colours - chocolate brown, silver grey and light bronze, the exception being the Royal Marines which was black. Most of the arms and corps badges were chocolate coloured Whilst the infantry had silver grey if their metal cap badge was white metal, and light bronze if brass. If the original badge was bi-metal. i.e. both brass and white metal, either colour was used, in fact sometimes batches of each. For some curious reason collar badges for the Royal Marines and the 7th Hampshires exist but no others that I have heard of. The sad fact is that there seems to be no complete record available of what was produced.

The badges were riot popular when issued and in some cases commanding officers refused to allow their men to wear them if stocks of metal badges were still available. Furthermore, they were not popular after the war with military badge collectors and could be bought for coppers. However, today many are prized collectors' items.

It is beyond the scope of this article to give a price list as there are around 100 different known specimens, several of which appear in more than one colour.

As an update, the troops in Northern Ireland found that their shiny metal cap badges were a perfect spot for a terrorist sniper to aim at. During the 1970s the Royal Regiment of Fusiliers was issued with black plastic badges to obviate this. But the re-introduction of plastic badges did not catch on and today troops in Northern Ireland simply paint their cap badges black.

Good reference books: Military Badge Collecting, John Gaylor, published by Seeley Service. Head-Dress Badges of the British Army Vol 2, Kipling & King, published by Muller (the badge ‘bible'). See also British PIastics Nov. 1943 for an illustrated article on badges & buttons.