Medals Pins Badges and Patches

The world of pins, medals, and badges ranges from hard-won military medals to readily available enameled pins purchased at places like Disneyland and the Hard Rock Cafe. Some people collect pins or participation medals from summer and winter Olympic games, while others go for authentic sheriff and marshal badges from the days of the wild west, although such items have been widely reproduced, so collectors need to be on the lookout for fakes. And then there are the fraternal pieces awarded to members of the Elks Club, Odd Fellows, and various Masonic orders. Military medals honor those who came through when the going got tough. Medals can be awarded for service, conduct, or participation in a military campaign, and they can hang from a ribbon or not. Military pins include badges and insignia that are pinned to a soldier's or officer's uniform. Many collectors pursue pins from wars that they or their loved ones fought in. A special case is the U.S. Civil War, which produced great numbers of insignia and pins on both signs of that bloody struggle. Union pieces tend to be the most common, while Confederate insignia are less so, and thus more expensive. Unfortunately, both have been widely reproduced for re-enactors, often from their original dies, which is why many collectors stick to “dug” items, as corrosion is a sign of authenticity and difficult to replicate. While military medals definitely tell stories, insignia are more transactional, designed to designate the wearer’s rank and tested skills at a glance—"wings" in the Air Force are for pilots; "diver" badges in the Navy and other branches of the military mark the wearer as qualified to perform military operation underwater. Rank insignia are typically made of fabrics such as worsted and wool, and sometimes these pieces are sewn in pairs or trios on a jacket, depending on if the wearer is a corporal or sergeant, as well as on epaulettes. Brass insignia signify a wearer’s unit (crossed cannons for artillery, crossed sabers for cavalry), capital letters designate company, and numbers stand for regiment. Since World War II, U.S. servicemen and women have worn bars covered with colorful ribbons, known colloquially as fruit salad, each piece of which can tell astute observers everything they need to know about the wearer’s service and rank. Military badges, which can be similar to those worn by police officers, firefighters, and railroad personnel, are also awarded as Orders, which can be given to military and non-military citizens alike. Strictly speaking, military badges are supposed to hang from ribbons, but as a practical matter, the term is less precisely used than that. Indeed, some military “badges” are pinned to jackets and caps and serve a similar purpose as insignia—the wearer is a surgeon, a parachutist, a bugler, etc. Of course, most of us associate badges with the tin stars worn by sheriffs in the mid-19th-century American west. In fact, police badges actually started out as handmade items, made from whatever a newly sworn officer could find. Before long, though, blacksmiths were making badges out of stronger stuff than old tin cans, and eventually those artisans were put out of the badge business by high-volume badge manufacturers, who plated their products with nickel or rhodium. Stars were still the most popular shapes, whether five- or six-pointed, with or without balled tips, but in the 20th century, shields gained ground. Interestingly, the pins on these badges are often the best way to date them—the tongue catch was popular at the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th centuries, the Burgess Safety Catch wasn’t patented until 1909. Other recognizable badges from the 19th century are firefighter badges, which were often made out of a copper alloy called German silver, as well as brass. Shapes included shields and Maltese crosses, which were thought to protect those who saw them and to give courage to their wearers. If the firefighters happened to be battalion chiefs, the crosses featured sunrays. Blackinton Badges of Massachusetts began producing fire badges in 1852—many were crowned by eagles and littered with images of fire hoses, helmets, and other firefighting accoutrements. Railroad badges arrived in the United States a bit later, in the 1880s, when railroads imposed uniforms on their workers, including a hat decorated with a badge. As in the military, these cap badges tended to designate a worker’s rank and role, although those in charge of security wore badges that resembled police stars or shields. Railroadiana collectors seek out badges associated with specific roads, such as the Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe or the Chesapeake and Ohio, but as with Civil War badges and insignia, the market is lousy with fakes. Close cousins of the official badges and pins worn by members of police forces and firefighters are the insignia and medals sported by members of fraternal orders such as Masons, who often call these medals “jewels.” Indeed, some Masonic presentation medals were made by Tiffany, but others were simpler, designed only to show the number of years a wearer had been a member of a given order. Iconography included compasses and keys, while the medals themselves were often made of coin silver. In addition to medals or jewels, Masons wore pins, some of which featured "all-seeing” eyes to represent God or trowels to signify friendship. A major supplier of these and other fraternal pieces was DeMoulin Bros. & Co. of Greenville, Illinois. Less serious than the official or even quasi-official medals, pins, and badges described above are pinbacks or buttons. Celluloid pinbacks were produced from the 1890s to the 1940s to promote everything from political candidates to brands of tobacco. Pinbacks were often given away free, which is why some of these little items are tough to find today—when something is free, there’s not a lot of incentive to save it. But the images on these little advertising premiums have endured, whether it’s a drawing of Mickey Mouse or the stern image of presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan. After printing on celluloid was replaced by lithographing directly onto metal, buttons had a second life, allowing citizens to proclaim such diverse sentiments as “I Like Ike” or “Stop the War.”