badge/decoration

[Wood]

Here is a badge /decoration that for some reason I picked up from Ebay.

What is it and what was it for???

[Wood]

Reverse. It is dated (in ink?) 31.12.17. with a name. Plus the letters K. B. A. G. Ser. 1. Nr. 09731. manufacturer C.E. Juncker Berlin.

Any help would be gratefully appreciated.

Regards.

Pete

[Guest Rick Research]

That is actually a quite nice and unexpectedly scarce DUTY badge for German 1914-18 home front civilian war volunteers. They did have uniforms of sorts, and wore a bewildering variety of armbands and so on.

Some of them carried side arms, so it wasn'tr ALL scrap metal drives and handing out patriotic leaflets or collecting for the "Gold for Iron" campaigns:

Taken in Langensalza, but no date: wearing a tricolor VHD armband on the sort of dark blue "lumberjack" coat handed out to Ersatz-Reserve units and Landsturm types in 1914 though with late 1915 on style improvized ribbon bar (Red Eagle 4 and a Reserve Long Service, probably), with a regular army officer's cap, officer's bayonet knot, enlisted man's buckle on oddly rivetted belt, and a teensy little "suicide special" popgun PERFECT for fending off enemy squirrels at point blank range. The light backpack straps are another nice touch-- must have been packing his lunch back there out of sight.

[Gerd Becker]

Interesting badge, even serialnumbered and named. I wonder, if there are still some archives, where the recipient still is listed?

The name looks to me like Schr?der, but could you post a picture with open needle?

[Wood]

Thanks for the info Rick. My trusty Black Widow scanner has expired, and I'm using a rubbish one. What was yours again?

I think you are right on the name Gerd. Heres a close up anyway

Any ideas what K.B.A.G. means? Oh yes and its 55mm in dia. and magnetic. A big badge, or whatever it is.

Edited March 18, 2007 by wood

[Stogieman]

Not just a rather rare badge... but interesting as well because of the consistency in maker mark from Juncker.

[Gerd Becker]

Definately Schr?der, Pete

Really an interesting Juncker badge and with a very high quality construction.

Nice!

[Ferg1]

Just to add a footnote to this thread ,the maker mark ,although 100% original, is NOT actually consistant with the usual ones seen on pilot badges.Look again and you will see that the Berlin is in capitol letters and the same on pilot bades is in lower case. Just another variation in maker stamps . Ferg1.

[Chip]

K.B.A.G. = Kriegs=Bekleidungsamt=Gardekorps That's what it means on military issue items anyway. The members who served in military functions (usually garrison and railway guards and military office personell) wore these items and were drawing them out of the Bekleidungamter. There is a picture of this very badge and a discussion of it and the other insignia worn by this group in Kraus, Vol.II page 825. Here is an armband from my collection, which has the ink stamp of a Bavarian artillery depot.

Chip