A Tale of Three Badges

[desantnik]

These three badges all belong to subordinate units of the 9 Guards Independent Destroyer Anti-Tank Brigade. Notice the silver-colored one in the middle identifies it further as belonging to the brigade's 329 Regiment.

Now note the gold-colored badge on the left and note its blank area where the Regiment number should be. Compare it to the gold-colored badge on the right and notice how the number "329" or "328" was applied subsequent to manufacture, apparently with a die punch.

Finally, not the reverses of these badges. The silver mentions three numbers "508, 1207, and 1845" across the top, I'm only assuming these were the Brigade's three regiments', pre-Guards designations. Now also compare the two gold-colored badges that seem to have the top line(s) as well as maybe "Berlin, Prague" and "11.05.45" all seemingly scratched out.

I only surmise these gold-colored badges were meant to be used by other regiments' veteran groups, as indicated by both the "erased" unit information and the blank areas that could be customised to the particular regiment.

Any other theories?

[deValcourt]

Originally Posted by desantnik

I only surmise these gold-colored badges were meant to be used by other regiments' veteran groups, as indicated by both the "erased" unit information and the blank areas that could be customised to the particular regiment.

Any other theories?

I can see leaving blank space for specifics to be added later. What I don't understand at all is the "erasing" of information, especially of the numbers on the obverse since these look inexpensive enough that they should have been available in large enough quantity for every particular unit - unless, it was either a minting error (not very likely) or the regiment numbers were different than what they had been during the war (just slightly more likely).

I just can't imagine such a demand for these that they would need to recycle them by changing original factory details other than there was a limited run and vets were given whatever was handy at the time and told to "fix" them according to where and with whom they served.

Just tossing out ideas.

Phillip