A Few of My Bits - Home Guard, WAAC to QMAAC to ATS to WRAC, MTC, FANY, Nursing

[Terry Webb]

Here are a few pictures of my collections of Home Front and women's services.



































Terry

[BrodieBartfast]

Now this is a breath of fresh air, a nice collection of Home Front stuff! How hard is it to come by this sort of thing on your side of the pond?

Regards, B.B.

[Terry Webb]

Thanks BB, It is actually not so bad finding it, as I only started on this collection in December of last year. The killer is the shipping costs from the UK, Canada and Australia!!! But this is what interests me so I try to batch as much as possible into a shipment through the help of friends and that helps a great deal. Here's a couple of pictures of batch shipments I got.





Terry

[LoyalHistorian]

Terry, really nice collection going there! Especially for such a short time. I just need to bite the bullet and pay for the shipping costs from the UK. I so want more British Home Front items, and I never find them locally.

-Robyn

[Composite]

Ditto BB. ‘Nice to have something to look at on here for a change! It’s seems the “Club” is getting bigger :-) You need a few helmets........

...but don’t get me started on postage costs across the pond......especially when I’m a helmeteer...I guess I could follow your idea. ‘Fancy going halves on a Maersk shipping container? :-)

[TabsTabs1964]

Nice collection, congratulations!
I love rabbits too.

Santi

[Watchdog]

Hi Terry, I agree with BB that this is a "breath of fresh air"! Being as I am, one who is enthused by every facet of 20th century militaria I get really frustrated when the centre stage is so often dominated by adherrents of a single area/type! Each to his own of course but this is far too specific for my taste. Those folk miss so much I feel. My collecting habits are not just "blue" or "red" they are very much "rainbow" to use a very simple analogy.

You cover here two areas that in my opinion are greatly overlooked mainly because thay were not directly involved in the battle of the Kursk Salient/Arnhem/Normandy etc etc. How short-sighted! It's like reading a book and skipping the middle chapters to get to the blockbuster finale without following the actual plot

I don't have any HG items in my collection but that is not a matter of exclusion. It simply has not happened yet I do however have a few womens services badges and I have to say that amongst the hardest to find in my experience are some of the most recent of the lot, the WRAC especially the cloth items.

I know Terry has seen this but for those who haven't here is a link to where I posted my womens badges;

Womens services cap badges

Not as many as Terry but as I said I have a very large "arc of fire" to cover

Regards

Mark

[Terry Webb]

Gentlemen, thank you all for the very kind comments! I have collected the "battle" guys stuff, so know it is and will always be the more popular. After I sold and traded off my Airborne collection I stopped collecting for a good while, well, until this past December, when the Home Front (Britain) caught my fancy. I was always fascinated by the FANY, so that was a no brainer, and after watching the excellent series "ANZAC Girls" I became interested in the nursing aspects as well. I do collect both Britain and the Commonwealth that fit into my arenas, so primarily, Britain, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. I'm retired now, so hobby funds are greatly reduced from what I had available before. But I still get to enjoy the hobby.

If you are starting in any of these areas, I am not THE expert, but have learned a lot and am always willing to offer help if I can. A couple of things. Be very careful of Home Guard UTP, Randor, IoM and Rutland cap badges. The majority of what you see are fakes. I can share with you how to spot decent ones of some of them - Rutland being very tough, but be prepared to pay. For Home Guard lapel pins (one of my favorite areas) there are like 80 different ones that I've cataloged and am happy to share my file via email. Lastly, if you are into variations, there are like 20 different WRAC cap badges cataloged so far. The WRAC badges are not expensive, which makes them fun to collect. Amazingly, the JR Gaunt London badge is a pretty hard to find badge, only because the original design did not have the wreath leaves go up far enough for a good bond at the crown, so it broke easily. This was remedied with the ones marked JR Gaunt B'HAM. The other hard one to find is the one with blades put out by the Danbury Mint. Although it is really a fake, I felt it still belonged in the collection and a friend sent me one! The other known fake is the one made by AMMO, but again included it in my collection too. I will also add the AMMO QARANC badge just because it is a variation, and is not one trying to be marketed as "genuine".

Mark, you have some really NICE badges there. Just FYI, unless you want a fake and pay the price for a fake, do not buy a QMAAC cap badge that is solid. The only good Verizon made is the one that has the cut out around the letters. However, when I find a solid one at a fake value price I'll get it just a s a variation.

Santi, bunnies rule in our house. We've had them for the past 20 years and they are our babies! That picture is Winston, a NZ Red, and Hannah, a Rhinelander doe.

Stay well,

Terry

Terry

[Kryton]

I like the AA stuff and home guard badges . Very cool . Rob

[Chopperman]

Great collection. Thanks for sharing it with us.