British Army Cap Badges of the Twentieth Century

Book excerpt: Items connected with the British military have always been extremely popular with collectors, and the intricate and beautiful badges made to denote a soldier's regiment have always been keenly collected, due to their small size, high quality and the fascinating stories of military derring-do that lie behind each one. The British army cap badge really came into being around the turn of the twentieth century, with large badges intended for the blue cloth helmets then in use. Later badges became smaller, and materials changed, as headgear became smaller, and new manufacturing techniques took away the laborious daily cleaning that was a part of every soldier's routine for most of the century. With every regiment having numerous variations of badge, this is a field of collecting that will yield rewards for the collector. With the aid of nearly 200 specially taken color photographs, Arthur Ward offers a complete introduction to this topic.