Month: December 2025
Merry Christmas, One and All
As the year draws to a close, we’d like to wish all our visitors, dealers, and the wider collecting community a very happy Christmas and a peaceful New Year.
This charming Edwardian Christmas card captures a slower, more reflective festive moment – a reminder of traditions, journeys, and gatherings that feel just as relevant today. It’s in that same spirit of pause that we’d like to let you know the Market will be closed this coming Saturday, 27 December.
The Market will return in the New Year on Saturday, 3 January 2026, when we look forward to welcoming everyone back for another year of discoveries, conversations, and remarkable collectables.
Until then, thank you for being part of the CXM story this year. Enjoy the festivities and we’ll see you all in 2026!
On Track to Victory
These two railway war service badges date from the Second World War and reflect the scale and importance of Britain’s railways between 1939 and 1945. Issued to employees whose roles were deemed essential, they were worn on the lapel and served a very practical purpose. At a time when civilian men not in uniform could attract suspicion, the badge signalled contribution to the war effort and helped spare the wearer the stigma of the white feather.
Both examples were made by Fattorini, a firm with roots stretching back to 1827. Founded by Antonio Fattorini, an Italian-speaking immigrant who settled in Yorkshire, the company built its reputation through jewellery, watches and fine metalwork. Its long association with official and commemorative badges is still evident today, as the firm continues to manufacture insignia.
The badges shown represent two of the major pre-nationalisation railway companies. One is marked S.R. for the Southern Railway, the other L.N.E.R. for the London and North Eastern Railway. Given the sheer number of people employed by the railways during the war, railway examples are among the more frequently encountered war service badges, though condition is another matter.
Each badge is individually numbered on the reverse to prevent misuse, with additional code letters indicating the manufacturer’s reference. The lug fitting, rather than a pin, was designed for durability, but constant daily wear meant enamel damage was common. Finding examples with clean, intact enamel remains a challenge, and it is this everyday wear that gives these small objects their quiet authority as witnesses to working lives under wartime pressure.
‘Let’s Bee Having You’
Victorian brooches often hide small stories, but this one seems determined to hide several at once. At first glance it looks like a classic silver commemorative piece for Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee in 1887. The heart shape is decorated with hand-engraved roses, shamrocks and thistles, along with VR and the dates 1837 and 1887 – all very proper, all very patriotic. Then you notice the centrepiece: a large, slightly smug-looking bee clutching a small truncheon.
That’s when the questions begin.
Some collectors suggest a neat symbolic pairing. Victoria as the Queen Bee, and the truncheon as a tidy nod to royal authority. Others take a more literary route and see a playful reference to Sherlock Holmes, who had become a cultural favourite by the late 1880s. Holmes, of course, retired to Sussex to keep bees, having spent his earlier years in the company of truncheons and constables. It’s a tempting link.
Then there’s the wonderfully eccentric explanation heard in markets from Edinburgh to Exeter. Victorian landlords, it’s said, sometimes encouraged tenants to leave by releasing a swarm of bees inside the property. If the tenants stayed perfectly still, the bees would drift up the chimney and disappear. If not, the message was received rather more briskly. In that telling, the brooch becomes a curious badge of the beekeeper and the bailiff, a tiny silver nod to authority and ingenuity in equal measure.
Whether any of these theories is the right one is part of the charm. Victorian jewellery rarely settles for a single meaning when three will do.
Military Insignia After Partition
The badges shown here come from the long, slightly untidy transitional period after the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. Although independence redrew borders overnight, armies don’t reinvent their insignia quite so quickly. For several years, units on both sides continued to evolve their emblems, borrowing heavily from British patterns while gradually developing national identities of their own.
One quick rule of thumb: badges featuring the three lions of the Ashoka emblem are almost always Indian and firmly post-1947. Pieces incorporating a star and crescent will be Pakistani, also post-independence. Both countries inherited a large number of British designs and, in many cases, simply altered the headings. “Royal Signals” became “Indian Signals,” crowns disappeared, and the lions took their place. It wasn’t until 1954 that Pakistan formally adopted its own state emblem, so earlier Pakistani insignia can look quite experimental by comparison.
There are exceptions. Victorian designs featuring the Star of India were often left largely untouched, and a handful of small unit badges continued in their earlier forms with only minor changes. But as a broad 90 percent rule, lions for India and star-and-crescent for Pakistan will guide you well.
Most examples from this era were cast rather than die-struck, with lugs formed as part of the main body in brass or alloy. That construction style alone is often enough to place them firmly in the early post-partition years, when rapid expansion and local production dictated both materials and methods. For collectors, these transitional badges offer a fascinating glimpse at two new armies finding their visual identities in real time.
