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Some finds at Charing Cross Market take a little decoding. This enamel badge comes with a number, a story and a rather pressing explanation.

The clue is ‘10-100’. If you know your CB radio codes, you may already be smiling. For everyone else, it means a toilet break: a discreet way to announce that you’ll be off air while you attend to something more urgent.

Suddenly, a puzzling little badge makes perfect sense.

Thought to date from the 1970s, it’s a small souvenir of CB radio culture, when conversations over the airwaves came with their own vocabulary. A few numbers could get a message across without spelling everything out. In this case, probably a kindness to everyone listening.

It also shows how much interest can hide in an apparently modest object. You don’t need a precious metal, a famous signature or a grand historical occasion to find something worth investigating. Sometimes, an enamel badge and a baffling number are enough.

That’s part of the pleasure of browsing Charing Cross Market. Something catches your eye, curiosity takes over, and a little research reveals a story you weren’t expecting. This particular discovery just happens to concern someone who couldn’t stay on the air much longer. A small badge, then, with a surprisingly human message.

10-4, Rubber Duck!

At first glance, these two small enamel badges appear to be identical.

Both date from 1940 and carry the words ‘Resurgam 1940’ over a design combining the Union Jack with the French tricolour. Turn them over, however, and an important difference appears.

One carries a membership number together with a raised ‘S’, denoting a supporter. Badges such as these were issued by Les Français de Grande-Bretagne, a civilian organisation created in 1940 to support the Free French cause through practical help and fundraising.

The organisation brought together French people living in Britain who wanted to continue supporting their country during the war. Its activities were centred in London, with Trafalgar Square playing an important part in its early story – just a short distance from Charing Cross Collectors Market.

The badges themselves are small gilt-brass pieces, measuring around 20mm across. At their centre is the French tricolour, laid over the Union Jack, with ‘Resurgam 1940’ picked out prominently across the front.

Despite its French connection, ‘Resurgam’ is not French at all. It comes from Latin and means ‘I will rise again’ – a particularly powerful choice of words in 1940. The reverses are marked ‘H.W. Miller Ltd, Branston St, B’ham’, identifying the Birmingham manufacturer.

There was also a more temporary version of the design. Paper and foil badges were produced for fundraising, similar to the pin badges sold on flag days during the First World War.

More than 80 years later, these little badges are reminders of the links between Britain and France at one of the most difficult moments in their shared history – and of the civilian organisations and individual supporters who played their own part in the war effort.

During the Second World War, even small badges could play a part in supporting those serving overseas.

These wonderfully characterful Sailor Sam badges were produced in Pretoria, South Africa, during the 1939–45 war and sold to raise money for comforts for service personnel.

There were two main versions: Sailor Sam and Officer Sam. With their broad smiles and jaunty uniforms, they’re cheerful little objects, but the money they raised had a practical purpose. It helped to provide knitted items like socks, scarves, gloves and balaclavas.

For the Christmas 1944 campaign, another badge was produced featuring the wife of General Jan Smuts. Around the portrait are the words “22nd Dec 1944 S.A. Gifts and Comforts”.

It makes for an interesting little group of wartime souvenirs. Unlike formal military badges, these were intended for the public to buy and wear, combining fundraising, patriotism and a touch of humour.

Today they are reminders of the enormous amount of voluntary work that took place away from the battlefield, and of how something as simple as buying a small badge could contribute towards keeping a serviceman warm thousands of miles away.

They are also exactly the sort of item that can make a miscellaneous badge collection fascinating. A smiling sailor or officer might look like little more than a novelty at first glance, until you discover the story behind it.

This week’s selection brings together a fascinating group of Merchant Navy and Royal Navy badges, including a Second World War service badge bearing the letters MN inside a rope border.

The badge may be small, but it represents the enormous contribution made by Merchant Navy crews during the war. Merchant ships carried food, fuel, troops and vital supplies across waters patrolled by enemy ships and submarines. The simple MN design became a quiet mark of service for the men and women who kept those routes open.

Another recurring feature across the collection is the naval crown. At first glance it looks like a conventional royal crown, but a closer look reveals a miniature fleet of sails, masts and ships worked into its design.

One of the larger examples shown here was used as a membership badge by the Royal Navy Old Comrades Association. More commonly, the crown appeared on Merchant Navy badges, cap badges and buttons.

The design has roots stretching back to ancient Rome, where crowns associated with naval victories were presented to successful commanders. Their decoration represented pieces taken from captured warships, providing visible proof of victory when paraded through Rome.

Over time, these captured ships and their fittings became stylised into the distinctive sails, sterns and mast-like points seen around the crown.

The naval crown had been used by Britain’s Royal Navy since the 1700s, but the Merchant Navy did not widely adopt it until after the First World War. Before then, merchant sailors generally wore the individual insignia of the shipping company or line they worked for.

That makes these badges an interesting record of changing identity. The earlier badges connected a sailor to one particular company. The naval crown helped create a wider sense of belonging to the Merchant Navy as a whole.

Also pictured are badges from individual ships and organisations, with anchors, ropes, ships’ wheels, waves and other maritime symbols picked out in enamel and metal.

They are modest objects, designed to be worn rather than displayed, but each carries part of a much larger story of ships, service and life at sea.

Most people who remember the old halfpenny will picture the sailing ship on its reverse. Fewer realise it represented Sir Francis Drake’s famous vessel, the Golden Hind.

The design was introduced in 1937, replacing Britannia, which had appeared on the halfpenny for generations. The Golden Hind remained on the coin until the final issue in 1967, and the halfpenny ceased to be legal tender in 1969.

Drake’s ship was originally called the Pelican. During his voyage, he renamed it the Golden Hind in honour of Sir Christopher Hatton, one of his principal supporters, whose family crest featured a golden hind.

Renaming a ship was no small matter. Sailors traditionally considered it unlucky, believing it risked angering the sea gods and bringing misfortune to the vessel.

Although the Golden Hind design arrived in 1937, older Britannia halfpennies continued to circulate alongside it. Bronze halfpennies, first issued in 1860, remained in circulation for 109 years.

The denomination itself had an even longer history. Official copper and bronze halfpennies were issued for nearly 300 years before the coin finally disappeared in 1969.

Do you remember the ship halfpenny?

With the Great War finally over in 1919, communities across Britain looked for ways to thank the men and women who had served. Many towns and cities produced local tribute medals as public tokens of gratitude and remembrance.

This example was presented by the citizens of Lincoln on August 30th, 1919.

The front of the medal reads “Served in the Great War” with the dates 1914–1919. Its design brings together symbols of service on land, sea and air, including a field gun, naval ship, aircraft and airship. In the foreground, a kneeling soldier receives a laurel wreath from a classical figure representing victory.

The reverse reads “Token of Lincoln’s Gratitude” and carries the city arms with the motto “Civitas Lincolniensis”.

The medal is housed in its original leather-covered presentation case. The lining inside the lid reads:

Presented
by the Citizens
of Lincoln
August 30th, 1919

Around 4,000 of these medallions were presented in mid-1919, making them an important civic tribute from the city to those who served.

Some tribute medals were also produced in gold, usually in much smaller numbers. These were often funded by a local lord, lady or benefactor, and were sometimes named or regimentally numbered to the individual recipient.

This is a particularly complete survivor, retaining both the medallion and its original fitted case.

Military duty plates, also known as bed plates, offer a small but revealing glimpse into everyday regimental life.

Usually hung from a bedpost or locker, these brass plates showed that a soldier was away on duty and therefore unable to be present during an inspection of his bed, uniform and kit. Some were engraved with the word ‘DUTY’ on the reverse, allowing the plate to remain in place and simply be turned around when needed.

Early versions were often simple pieces of brass with a slot into which the soldier’s regimental cap badge could be fitted, along with a hole for hanging. Names and service numbers were then punched or engraved into the surface. Some plates also carry a maker’s mark, with F. Narborough of Birmingham among the best-known suppliers.

The Somerset Light Infantry example pictured dates from around the early 1900s. The larger Scots Guards plate, complete with its top loop, is believed to date from the 1930s, before the Second World War. This general pattern remained in use until the 1950s, when duty plates largely disappeared from military life.

Also shown is an unissued Green Howards plate, with ‘DUTY’ lightly engraved on the reverse but no soldier’s details added.

Many plates were melted down during wartime metal shortages, making surviving examples particularly interesting. As with medals, those linked to unusual units or notable service histories can attract extra attention. Their aged patina is usually best left untouched, unless active staining threatens the metal itself.

Close cousins of stamp collecting, covers are, in plain terms, envelopes that have travelled through the post. They show stamps doing the job they were made for, complete with cancellations, routes, redirections and the occasional extra mark that turns a simple envelope into a small historical document.

Collectors often look for the unusual detail: censor marks, military signatures, charity labels, propaganda seals or anything that reveals the story of the journey. The South African air mail cover shown here, postmarked 8 April 1943, is a fine example. Addressed to officers and men of the London 59th British Red Cross Society, Bermondsey Division, it carries an official seal and an officer’s signature, yet was still opened, checked by a censor, resealed, and given a unique censor number on the reverse. It then appears to have been redirected locally, adding another layer to its wartime travels.

The Canadian cover, postmarked Toronto on 14 December 1911, has a different kind of interest. Alongside the regular postage stamp is a festive Muskoka Free Hospital for Consumptives charity label, wishing “Merry Xmas 1911” and “Happy 1912 New Year”. The label promoted free care for people with tuberculosis, then commonly known as consumption.

Royal souvenirs can be grand, fragile or gloriously tiny. This Lesney Coronation Coach manages all three.

Produced for the coronation of Queen Elizabeth II, the little die-cast procession captures one of the great ceremonial sights of 1953: the Gold State Coach, drawn through London with the new monarch inside. The real coach was already an antique by then, built in 1762 and used at every coronation since William IV in 1831. Lesney’s version turns that pageantry into a tabletop parade, with white horses, red-coated riders and a gilt coach that still has plenty of presence.

It is also a neat stepping stone in British toy history. Lesney, founded by Leslie and Rodney Smith after the war, would soon become famous for Matchbox toys. The coronation coach helped prove there was a hungry market for small die-cast models with big stories attached.

The original price of five shillings was not throwaway pocket money either. Fittingly, 1953 also saw the Royal Mint issue a five-shilling Coronation Crown, giving the sum its own royal echo.

Today, the appeal is easy to understand. It is part souvenir, part toy, part miniature stage set. And unlike a programme or postcard, it does not simply record the coronation. It recreates the procession, frozen forever at full ceremonial trot.

Today, a pound is something we barely notice leaving our pocket. In 1813, it carried rather more weight – especially when it came as a handwritten promise from a local bank.

These Lincoln Bank one pound notes are reminders of a time when money was not always the standardised, state-backed object we know today. A banknote was exactly what the name suggests: a note from a bank. It promised that the bearer could receive the stated value on demand, and its worth relied on confidence in the people and institution behind it.

That personal element is all over these examples. The notes were hand cut, hand dated and individually numbered, with details added for the bank’s own ledger. They were also signed by John Steel, one of the four cashiers named on the face of the note, alongside Abraham Sheath, Challis Sheath and John Wray.

Their worn condition is part of the appeal. These were not made to survive as historic objects. They were working pieces of paper, passed from hand to hand, signed on the reverse by holders, then stamped or marked when finally redeemed. In most cases, redemption meant destruction.

More than two hundred years later, these fragile survivals still do what good collectables always do: they make a distant world feel surprisingly close.