Ralph A

http://www.barbwiremuseum.com/

Ask these people or search their site. I met a barbed wire collector once, out West. Actually, he got me fascinated with it.

Did you hear the Scots found a new use for sheep? They get wool from them...

I can get away with that, because my name is Abercrombie; damn your eyes man...

This is a recent acquisition.

You got it.

Top Drawer. Rare Earth. Not your everyday day badges and late-war potmetal stuff. Some of them were made in the 100,000's and other were made in limited runs. Like this one, maybe...

New Zealand Barfing Queequeg is THE BEST!

I agree. Love that Maori! Pretty typical pose for the aborigine, tongue out... he would be in a "fighting" stance and have one arm raised, if he were more than just a brass "head."

Very cool... very... "sexy"... :food-smiley-004:

A bit "unreconstructed" are we, Ralph?

All tongue-in-cheek. I make a pretty poor Confederate, and as a "Western" North Carolinian, I probably have (would have had?) more Unionist sympathies that one might suspect.

North Carolina (and Tennessee) were the last to leave the Union...

Abercrombie's by nature dislike change and are historically apt to support the "status quo." Many were Torys in the Revolution (Gen. Sir Ralph Abercrombie, to wit) and dissenters in the War Between the States (the Confeds used to send conscription parties into western NC and eastern Tenn. on raids to round up folks like my family to force them to fight for the Lost Cause). Live and let live, and leave us alone... Few owned slaves.

That being said, there was one Thomas Abercrombie in Louisiana with 500 or more slaves, reputed to be one of those types that prompted Harriet Beecher Stowe to write what she did.

Thanks for the replies! Several more moved into the "known" column.

- John C. Calhoun

The Confederate Government considered, in the eventuality of victory, to use the standing armies to invade Mexico and then South America! The idea was to turn the Gulf of Mexico into a western version of the Mediterranean; an agrarian empire based on slave labor. Scary thought.

I wonder what might have happened in Europe 50 or 60 years after the close of the war in question, without the existence of a "united" United States...

Did you know also, that in order to gain recognition from Great Britain, some within the Confederacy entertained the notion of asking the Royal family to send over someone to "rule"?

Wild card. Never seen another one.

Neither is this one.

Neither is this one.

Not a commonplace.

maritime theme continued...

Note the flawed wing.

That's it, gentlemen, and thanks for looking. Any help with corrections and on the unknowns will be appreciated.

Enjoy. God Save the Queen. :food-smiley-004: Rule Britannia. Up the Republic. Dam' the Yankees. Hurrah, for the Bonnie Blue Flag that bears a single star, & etc...

Unknown #13.

Unknown #12.

Unknown #11.

Unknown #10.

Unknown #9.

Unknown #8.

Unknown #7.

Unknown #6.

Unknown #5.

Unknown #4. Royal Artillery?

Unknown #3.

Unknown #2.

And now for a handful of unidentified badges.

Unknown #1. Looks Engineer, to me.