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1892 Shoulder Board/Kepi Emblems


Brig
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Well, I got the 1925 Bannerman's catalog reprint today and it is quite interesting. First of all, although they did indeed sell original Civil War contract items from both sides, they were also making copies.

 

And Bannerman's did indeed make EGA copies in 1925. They were "made to order" and "silver plated." Since they were made to order I would suspect they did not sell "thousands" of these. I will look through the rest of the catalog for more EGA's but, again we can now confirm they made repops as early as 1925.

 

These images were taken from page 267 of the 1925 catalog.

 

Bannerman25ega.jpg

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101combatvet

Thanks, for this information but for now I'll go with what Peter Hlinka told me. In my opinion "made to order" can mean that they had another company make them for them on order and they just brokered the deal. What you call a repop was probably an original "from the factory" made by Bailey, Banks & Biddle, Hilborn-Hamburger, or Imperial Insignia Manufacturing Company.

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  • 2 years later...

I bought this nickel EGA from a dealer who is an old friend this past weekend. (This has nothing to do with the topic but my friend is a Marine Veteran who served in Vietnam. He suffers terribly from exposure to Agent Orange and is in constant pain. I wish people would realize how much our veterans suffer from their service. Sorry, but I had to say that). He told me that this EGA has been in his collection for years and he bought it from a collector who bought it in the early 1950's. I read everything on the Reference Section on the nickel EGA's and decided to check this piece out. I looked at it under a microscope and saw that the ends of the wire prongs were the same nickel as the rest of the EGA. Some people said that these prongs were stainless steel. The prongs were easily bendable which is not a trait of stainless steel. I took a very fine file and filed the end of one of the wire prongs and under the nickel was brass. I then took my file and filed a tiny spot on the edge of the EGA. Under the nickel is brass. I then examined the lead solder under the microscope. The solder had been plated with nickel. I could see some oxidation and the powder that you see on old solder in and over tiny cracks in the plating. My conclusion after examining the EGA was that the piece was stamped out of brass. Brass wire prongs were soldered on by someone who really knew how to solder and the entire piece was nickel plated. A very professional job. The solder didn't look terribly old with the naked eye but under the microscope was old and oxidized at the cracks. The nickel is shiny but I have nickel plated swords and revolvers which have been well cared for and are from the late 1900's that are just as shiny. I am new to collecting EGA's but I do know about new and old metal and period techniques used to produce EGA's . l think this an old EGA not a recent re-strike.

Dick

post-9487-1318869383.jpg

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I guess that I am beating a dead horse since no one seems interested in the topic. but, for what it is worth, I think many of the nickel two pronged EGA's were produced as Military Band ornaments by Horstmann etc. around the turn of the century. Every small town, city, fraternal organisation, school, college etc had a military band. There were thousands of those bands and some had to be Marine Corps themed. Back in the 1970's I bought a hundred or so blue felt and pith helmets with eagles, spikes, plumes and chords from the local Elks. They were for the Elks Military Band around 1910 (I sold them complete for $25.00 each. I still have a bag of white Infantry horsehair plumes somewhere). The covers at the Marine Museum with the nickel EGA's probably have their original New Bedford, Catawissa, Pawtucket etc Military Band ornaments c 1900-1910.

Dick

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I guess that I am beating a dead horse since no one seems interested in the topic.

 

26 hours and you declare it a lost cause?

 

Patience, lad, patience.

 

Keep in mind that probably 99% of EGA collectors will read this with interest (and 39 have as of this writing) but will be shy about posting a reply since you did some thorough analysis that's beyond the scope of what most collectors do. There are indeed many unanswered questions about the history of EGA's and your post helps in our understanding.

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