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Jim,
RE: New World's badge. I respectfully disagree. The badge you are referring to (the university graduation badge for non-medical professions) was made of solid gold or gilded silver, and Eagle and wreath design was slightly different. I believe this one is an 1899 variation, established for military personnel, completing a full course of studies at civilian universities for non-medical professions. It is smaller, made of silver, has thinner Eagle, and wreath cut out at the top.
Alexei
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I would suggest that both badges shown at the begining of this thread probably started out life as sillver-gilt. As you point out, Patrikeev and Bojnovich in their book do make reference to a smaller version of the university graduation badge for certain military personnel to wear, but they say nothing about that version being in silver.
You have to go back to pre-Petrine times (i.e. the sixteenth century) to find the Russian state arms appearing without the third crown over the two crowned eagle heads. Vilinbakhov's "The State Arms of Russia - 500 Years" shows no such variety.
I've owned a half dozen of these badges and while my knowledge is not comprehensive, I would respectfully submit that the color variations are due to wear (or excessive cleaning) and that the missing crown is probably due to sloppy craftsmanship on the part of a jeweler - or perhaps someone's partial attempt to "de-Romanov" the badge under Kerensky? [As a sidebar: I have a very small lapel pin with the white enamel diamond frame, the blue enamel "Christian" cross and a red enamelled star with hammer & sickle at the top in lieu of the state eagle - go figure!]
It's fairly uncommon in photos to see imperial officers actually wearing these badges in uniform - but in the few photos I've seen, the officers look like they are wearing the full size badge, so how faithfully soldiers adhered to the instruction to wear a smaller version (perhaps smaller not to compete with larger specifically military award & unit badges?) is problematical.
Jim
