A 100% original issue but unissued rare Edinburgh Fire Brigade nickel silver cap badge in mint condition manufactured by Firmin & Sons.
This cap badge came from a small batch of unissued cap badges in the Edinburgh stores given to a young lad enthusiastic about Edinburgh Fire Brigade. That young lad joined the Scottish South Eastern Fire Brigade & served in Edinburgh all his career, having grown up in the city not far from the main fire station. Becoming a founding member of the Edinburgh Fire Brigade Museum he became very knowledgeable about the Edinburgh Fire Brigade & its insignia & uniforms !
There are FAKE badges out there & i have included further pictures of the original & fake badges side by side to show the differences, the original badge is on the left & fake badge pictured on the right.
A dealer had fakes manufactured by copying an original badge he had in his possession & tried to pass them off as silver plated officers issues. The hard fact that Edinburgh Fire Brigade Officers only wore bullion cap badges of which only one still is known to exist, this belittles the dealers claims....he had a cast brass mould made & silver plated the finished badges. They display 2 distinct flaws aside from the depth of the badge. These marks are consistent with all the fakes because of defects in the mould where fretting has damaged the edge. There is a distinct cut above the letter G in the word BRIGADE...& similarly another indentation on the inner rim above the letter E in brigade. These flaws are consistent on ALL the fake Edinburgh Fire Brigade cap badges. The original unissued rare cap badge is flawless with original brass lugs. The fakes started appearing in the 1990's where other rarer fire brigade cap badges were also faked in the mid / late 1980's !
So the main reason people bother to fake any badge is because its rare & they want to profit on that fact. So have a good look at both badges i've shown to demonstrate the fake badges out there against this 100% original Edinburgh Fire Brigade cap badge i now have for sale as a spare . The red cloth backing is modern but all E.F.B original issued badges had a red cloth backing, the cloth was cut at station & added but was not part of the original issued badges by Firmin & Sons.
