Topic: Badge weight The Royal Scots

[malcmat]

Hi, picked this up over the weekend a Badge weight The Royal Scots  and wondered if it could have been made in Scotland. I have reviewed the previous posts on GMB and it seems a few could have been made in Eastern Europe.
The weight has a rough broken off pontil mark and is 3.5 inches dia and 2.750 inches tall and weighs 27oz or 757gr and also the badge sits on a mottled / frit ground.
Any comments would be appreciated.

Malcolm

[tropdevin]

***

Hi.  Many of these badge weights are Belgian, although there are some Scottish ones.  Is it possible to add a direct view of the base, so the detail of the frit ground is visible?

Alan

[daveweight]

Hi Malcolm
As Alan says quite a few of these badge weights were made in Belgium and sometimes it can be difficult to tell whether they are Belgian or Scottish, possibly by Paul Ysart. I am not an expert so I look forward to seeing what the experts say but personally I tend to look first at the frit ground as the Belgian ones have slightly larger piece of frit and are on a clear ground whereas the Scottish ones seems to me to have smaller pieces of frit and a white base and look a lot brighter but the thing that gives it away with your weight is the size; Scottish/Ysart badge weight tend to be of a smaller size with a diameter of 2.5" - 2.75" but the Belgian ones are larger often with a 3.5" diameter.  I am only aware of one magnum badge weight Paul Ysart made and that is the badge of the Black Watch who were stationed in Perth during the war. Here are two pictures to try and illustrate my views, the first is a Belgian weight with the Royal Engineers RE badge and the second is an upright Ysart.
Dave

[malcmat]

Thanks Alan and Daveweight have uploaded further images. It does seem as though the base frit is of a smaller size as opposed to the Belgian weight ?

Malcolm

[KevinH]

I now take the view that it is not easy to separate some of the Belgian (or "Alsace", or "elsewhere") "badge and frit" weights from those made in Scotland (mainly by Paul Ysart).

And I don't think it is easy to make comparisons of "size of frit" without seeing weights actually side by side or in the same photo.

As for the pontil scar / mark, that is also difficult to assess as they seem to vary quite a bit among all the suggested sources. But I do think that a larger, untidy pontil scar is an indication of "mainland Europe" rather than Paul Ysart's work even though his base finishing on this type of weight can be quite untidy.

[tropdevin]

***

I can see arguments both ways on this piece.  The shape does not look at all like a Scottish piece, but the purple tinge to the clear glass is in line with early Ysart pieces - Paul seemed to have significant trouble with the glass quality - hence the number of cracked Paul Ysart paperweights you find, as well as purple tinged ones.

Alan

[daveweight]

Personally I still think size is a very relevant factor here as I have four Ysart bade/button weights and all are 2.5" diameter and I have never seen an Ysart badge weight much bigger than this but I have had a couple of Belgian ones that were 3.5" diameter.
Thanks Kevin and Alan for your comments - very interesting
Dave 

[malcmat]

Thanks to all again for the constructive discussion re badge weights.
The other question I wanted to ask is whether it is from around the 1930 or earlier.
Again thank you all
Malcolm

[tropdevin]

***

Hi.  The clue to the date might be the badge: badge designs did sometimes change, so if you can find when this badge design was in use (from research on a military / regimental history site) that will give you an earliest date for the badge, and hence the paperweight.  But as for latest date - you can, in theory, still make paperweights like this using very old badges....not that I am suggesting yours is modern.

Alan

[KevinH]

For Paul Ysart examples of "Medallion / Cap Badge" weights, the dating is stated in Colin Mahoney's book, Masterworks, the paperweights of Paul Ysart as: "During the 1930s and possibly during World War II ..."

Colin also states "Most of the observed badges are from World War I (1914-1918). That observation ties in with my own research on these items (but I had only looked into half a dozen or so).

Some people thought that old soldiers (or family members?) had taken their badges to Paul Ysart in the 1930s and asked for them to be encased in a weight. Nice thought, but probably not the case. In his book, Colin Mahoney states: "Paul's son, Salvador, remembers his father bringing home a box filled with medals, leading to speculation that the badge weights were yet another form of experimentation ...".