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Can you date my SEAL Trident?


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triplecanopy

Your SEAL Trident was made by HLI Lordship Industries, Inc., Hauppauge, NY. who used hallmarks(L1, L22). Yours is marked L22.

This is an original military issue piece. To date it in a ballpark time frame, it would be probably 1980's ish.  Perhaps a Navy badge guy could narrow it down a bit more. These badges were made by several different manufacturers, but this one is Lordship Industries.

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Thanks T.C.!

Appreciate the affirmation.....

I have 3 more Tridents for you or the Navy badge guys...

Gold V-21N (no hyphen between 21 and V), Black D-22, and a silver KREW badge.....

 

Age and authenticity info greatly appreciated.

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triplecanopy

D22 is Denmark's Military Supply - New York

V21 is Vanguard (still in business and make insignia for all services).

KREW was also a Militray Insignia maker in Attleboro, Mass. They are no longer in business.  BTW, The Silver colored trident was originally for enlisted SEAL's. This tradition goes back to the UDT Underwater Demolition Teams (Navy's original Frogmen) They had gold for officers and silver for enlisted. The UDT badge is now obsolete, but they added the Eagle to the UDT badge to make the SEAL Trident we have today. Now all the SEAL's wear the gold trident. The silver ones are getting scarce and are obsolete, so it would be desirable to hang on to it.

All three are good badges and original made for Military use.

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That is great to hear.

The Silver Trident was a gift from a good friend and is going nowhere.

Thank you very much for your information which I believe is some of the best on this forum.

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Sorry to be the bearer of bad news but your silver finished KREW hallmarked Trident with only two rear clutch back pins was not one of the original three insignia companies that manufactured the genuine enlisted silver Tridents that was very short-lived circa 1972.   These were manufactured after they did away with the silver finished Tridents and everyone had already gone to the gold finished Tridents.  KREW was not the only insignia company to manufactured a sliver finish Trident long after they were done away with.  For this reason your Trident and the other silver finished Tridents have to be considered reproductions.  Of interest is that the KREW hallmarked Trident was used as a template by someone to manufacture solid sterling silver cast KREW hallmarked Tridents with only two rear clutch back pins.  These are also considered reproductions.  

 

 

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triplecanopy

The UDT badges and Silver SEAL Tridents were only officially worn a short time if I recall. I was at Little Creek in 1972 and did six weeks of training with SEAL Team 2. I was most impressed by the fact that the Navy back then had a Special Warfare Career Field . The Army did not. The Army finally recognized Special Forces as a Career Branch in 1987. It took them a while to appreciate the need for Special Ops. Anyway, I recall seeing a number of the older UDT badges still being worn as well as the silver SEAL Tridents by the members of SEAL Team 2. The SEALs had some cool toys even back then.

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I have a friend who served as a Recon Marine from 70-73. He also recalls seeing SEALs wearing silver tridents in 1973 at Little Creek when he was working with them and SBS guys. He said he has a group picture showing SEALs wearing the silver trident in '73. When he comes up with it I will ask his permission to post it here. Unfortunately he is suffering from "Lajune Syndrome" and is fighting cancer and the V.A.

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triplecanopy

K21 is a KREW IOH number. I do not know about K22. The N is a Navy contract designation that you often see on Vanguard marked badges.  I see that another respected collector has offered his advice about your silver KREW trident. I would certainly keep that in mind. KREW was a military insignia maker and I personally did not know that they made any reproductions, but it is certainly possible. My silver SEAL trident is marked ANTAYA 1/20th SF.

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triplecanopy

I took another look at the other Silver SEAL Tridents that I have and see that one is marked M-22 N which is the IOH number for NS Meyer. That may also be a later strike as that IOH number was the last used by NS Meyer before they went out of business. It may be out of the date range for authentic military issue examples. I don't know about that. Perhaps TONOMACHI or another collector can comment.

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Here are photos of the backs of three genuine enlisted silver finished Tridents form the early 1970s.  They were worn for about a year or so before they were done away with along with all of the UDT badges.  After this one year or so period everyone began wearing the gold finished Trident badge.   So if you come across a silver finished Trident that does not look like these three badges they are not genuine period enlisted Tridents.  For some reason a number of insignia companies began producing silver finished Tridents along with gold finished Tridents in I'm guessing the late 1970s or early 1980s.  They must have not been informed by the Navy that they had done away with the silver Tridents.  The gold finished Tridents were genuine but not their mirror image silver finished Tridents because they were no long authorized for wear which is why they are not genuine to the period and I call them reproductions.  This includes the insignia companies NS Meyer and Vanguard who produced the first genuine silver finish Tridents in the photos but began producing what I can only call a copy using different dies as the back of the badges are different (see photos).  

 

Now there was a very convincing cast fake of the Antaya hallmarked silver finished Trident made in the 1980s with an additional incised hallmark of STERLING.  I posted pictures of it on another thread.  They must have used an original Antaya silver finished Trident as a template to produce several copies.  I'm guessing they used the centrifugal loss wax method of casting as the tiny Antaya incised hallmark on the reverse looks stamped into the metal.  This piece is slightly smaller in size due to the shrinking process during casting but you can only tell if you line up a genuine badge with the cast copy as the size difference is so slight.  In addition the rear clutch back pins aren't correct as they are very fragile and break off easily with the base solder being very brittle.  The front finish was off being a bright dark polished bluish almost black color.   I know this because I purchased one thinking it was genuine back in the 1980s.  I had it for a number of years before I realized it was fake.  I have since been made aware of another fake that was being offered for sale on an Internet insignia sales site that looks like a cast copy of the original Vanguard silver Trident.  I have only seen a poor slightly unfocused photograph so I don't know how well it was made.  

 

Lastly if you look real close at the back of the three genuine period silver finished Tridents they are identical except for the hallmarks.  I have a sneaky suspicion that there was only one die and one of the three insignia companies produced these Tridents for themselves and the other two insignia companies in the early 1970s. 

 

 

1 My Trident Collection July 2020 (12) - Copy.JPG

1 My Trident Collection July 2020 (12).JPG

1 My Trident Collection July 2020 (13) - Copy.JPG

V21N Incised Silver Trident  (2).jpg

M22N.jpg

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triplecanopy

Most interesting and informative. Thanks Dennis. Your insight on these badges is much appreciated. I learned a lot. Glad to know my Antaya's are the real deal.

 

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There is no listing for this specific alpha-numeric manufacture's code that is on the List of Manufactures of US Emblem provided on another thread (see link).  I saw this silver finish Trident on eBay (see link) and I thought it sold for more than I thought it would sell for because it is a reproduction.  

 

 

 

https://www.ebay.com/itm/US-Navy-SEALS-Special-Warfare-SEAL-Team-Trident-Insignia-Badge-Pin-/233732145131?ssPageName=STRK%3AMEBIDX%3AIT&nma=true&si=fFbqPksNDfC8AkbBk5KU3CHEQQU%3D&orig_cvip=true&nordt=true&rt=nc&_trksid=p2047675.l2557

 

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