The legacy continues

[Silverghost]

This will not be everyone's cup of tea. My dad had a badge bar that he had made for his 1928 Rolls Royce PI Riviera Town car. When he sold it in '75, he kept the badge bar. The bar is now mine and I've mounted it on my 68 MGB. It's very special to me and I am proud to have it on my car. I know badge bars aren't for everyone, but I wanted to share this with my friends here.

 

[JodyFKerr]

"Badges! We don't need no stinking badges!"

Looks good!

 

[PAUL161]

I think it's great! Who cares if others like it or not! The most important thing is, a part of your Dad is with you where ever you go. Old as I am, I still, really miss my Dad and the enjoying times we had together. PJ

 

[Roger]

I know I've raised this before, and I apologise if it offends, but I find that badge bar offensive.
Those badges are tokens of membership of organisations, not ornaments or trinkets. If you don't have a right to them, you ought not to display them.

 

[PAUL161]

But I'm assuming that his Dad had a right to them and to me, that gives him the right to display them in remembrance. Ended! JMHO. PJ

 

[davester]

I think it's great. It'd be nice to get a close up shot because I can't make out all of the stinking badges in that picture.

 

[Silverghost]

Here is a better detail shot of the badges on the bar.

From top to bottom, left to right, they are:
1) A.C.C. - Automobile Club Du Cameroun
2) Automobile Club de la Province d'Alger
3) Classic Car Club of America
4) A.C.O. - Automobile Club de L'Oraine
5) The Veteran Car Club of Great Britain
6) A.N.W.B. - KONINKLIJKE NEDERLANDSCHE TOERISTENBOND
7) British Automobile Racing Club
8) A.A. - New Coventry, London
9) Rolls-Royce Owners Club
10) R.A.C. - Royal Automobile Club
11) The Vintage Sports-Car Club

Keep in mind that this badge bar was purposefully made and custom fit to each and every one of the badges on it back around the early 60's. I know for certain my dad was a member of the CCCA and the RROC and most likely belonged to the others or had friends who were members and offered him the badges as gifts. My dad was very active in his day in cars of all sorts.

Roger, I appreciate your comment and assure you that in this case it is not a collection of "look what I found on eBay" badges. If my dad was still with me, I would find out how/why each one came to be on the bar. Instead, as Paul said, they have been passed to me from my father, so it is in memory of him that I have fitted it to my MGB.

 

[Silverghost]

A picture of the back side showing the main body made out of a solid piece of aluminum and custom cut to each badge. Then the outer left and right badges were added at some point, again custom fit to the relative badge. I have always been impressed with this as it was done in the 60's - BEFORE CnC machines, etc. It could not have been inexpensive back then and I don't want to think about the cost in today's dollars!

 

[Deleted member 8987]

The only "badge" I would get confrontational over is Dolphins (fishes).
Other than that, they're in the family, "bought and paid for", they're yours to use.

Good story behind them.

Dave
ET(SS) USS SeaHorse, SSN 669

 

[PAUL161]

Peter, the only thing I'd be concerned with is that they never got damaged or stolen. Some very unscrupulous people out there. Is your car a daily driver? PJ

 

[Silverghost]

It often is and so I can take the bar off relatively easily for the exact reason you just said.

 

[MGA75002]

Peter, you are welcomed to display your Dad's badges. If that isn't provenance, I don't know what is.

In a slightly related topic, my TR3 has a badge bar with badges from Western New York and Southern Maryland sports car clubs, put on by the restorer of the car 14 years ago. I am not - and have never been - a member of those clubs, but I am keeping the badge bar on the car as it is part of <span style="font-weight: bold">the car's provenance.</span>

My attitude is that I am the current caretaker of this automobile, and if I add a badge during my stewardship, I would hope that succeeding owners would keep all badges intact.

Just my three cents...

 

[vagt6]

Peter, you are welcomed to display your Dad's badges. If that isn't provenance, I don't know what is.

In a slightly related topic, my TR3 has a badge bar with badges from Western New York and Southern Maryland sports car clubs, put on by the restorer of the car 14 years ago. I am not - and have never been - a member of those clubs, but I am keeping the badge bar on the car as it is part of <span style="font-weight: bold">the car's provenance.</span>

My attitude is that I am the current caretaker of this automobile, and if I add a badge during my stewardship, I would hope that succeeding owners would keep all badges intact.

Just my three cents...

And, just my tuppence worth, I agree.

 

[Roger]

Peter, I can see we're not going to get agreement, and realise there's a good deal of sentiment attached to things that belonged to our parents, and that cetainly is a handsome bar. To me it's a little like displaying their degrees as though they were ours, or wearing their medals. I'd be 100% in favour of that badge bar being displayed in a cabinet, or or the wall in your garage, or somewhere like that, but not in public on your car, like they were yours.

MGA 75002 -I don't see what provenance has to do with it. Provenance proves a car's history, but I'm stretching to see how a badge bar off a Rolls-Royce does that.

Back to Peter -
Badge no 5 is of the Veteran (not Vintage) Car Club of Great Britain, surely? I'm also pretty sure that no 4, ACO is Automobile Club de l'Ouest (Automobile Club of the West, organisers of the le Mans 24 hour race). Their badge has been through several iterations, but they usually embody a mangle-geared cog, and though your picture's pretty blurred when I blow it up, it does seem to be like that.
No 2 is historically interesting as the Province d'Alger no longer exists - it disappeared with Algeria's independence from France in 1962. What with that, the Cameroon and ACO badges, did your father have a French connection?

 

[Silverghost]

Peter, I can see we're not going to get agreement, and realise there's a good deal of sentiment attached to things that belonged to our parents, and that cetainly is a handsome bar. To me it's a little like displaying their degrees as though they were ours, or wearing their medals. I'd be 100% in favour of that badge bar being displayed in a cabinet, or or the wall in your garage, or somewhere like that, but not in public on your car, like they were yours.

MGA 75002 -I don't see what provenance has to do with it. Provenance proves a car's history, but I'm stretching to see how a badge bar off a Rolls-Royce does that.

Back to Peter -
Badge no 5 is of the Veteran (not Vintage) Car Club of Great Britain, surely? I'm also pretty sure that no 4, ACO is Automobile Club de l'Ouest (Automobile Club of the West, organisers of the le Mans 24 hour race). Their badge has been through several iterations, but they usually embody a mangle-geared cog, and though your picture's pretty blurred when I blow it up, it does seem to be like that.
No 2 is historically interesting as the Province d'Alger no longer exists - it disappeared with Algeria's independence from France in 1962. What with that, the Cameroon and ACO badges, did your father have a French connection?

Roger, thanks for catching the mistakes in my descriptions. I was worn out from being in the sun at the show all day. It is indeed the Veteran Car Club. I will take another look at badge #4 when I get home. I think I had another typo there - De L'Oranie instead of De L'Oraine. I can't tell from my pictures either. The words come from the perimeter of the badge. Thank you for the information you provided above, that's more than I've had until now. Muchly appreciated.

I am not sure about my dad's connections - I'm afraid that information is lost with him. He must have had some connection or reason, given the custom made nature of the bar itself and the individual attachment locations for each badge.

As for the issue of displaying or not displaying, I believe we can "Agree to disagree", as the saying goes.

I had a chance to check the badge - it is Automobile Club De L'Oranie. Maybe I could contact that show Histories Mysteries....?

 

[Deleted member 8987]

Pete-
Lots of folks want to rattle your chain.
There are ways to deal with it.....

But, just to show you, when I first posted photos of my Jag on another forum over two years ago, I got an E-mail from a Limey, telling me:

"You bloody Yanks. You think you know everything. Take them phony British plates off that car. I know all about plates here, there was never, ever a plate like that.".

So, I e-mailed him right back, told him he was absolutely right, there never was a Brit plate like these...because they're Singapore.

ZIP, shut him right up.

Remember, God in His infinite wisdom, provided us with fingers we can raise in any order.

I LOVE tangling with folks like that.....JCNA was interesting, as when thry wrote the MK2 Judging Guide, they IGNORED 2.4L, which have a whole lotta things different than 3.4 or 3.8 units.

Whole lotta things.
There is now an "Appendix" to the Guide.......

 

[Roger]

Peter,
I guess you know that l'Oranie is also in Algeria? I should have guessed - quite a French connection!

 

[Silverghost]

There IS a possible French connection - my last name is Hays, with no "e". My father always said that "Hayes" is English in origin and "Hays" is French in origin. I have books that were my father's the belonged to HIS father, from around 1908. When I did a search on the Automobile Club De L'Oranie, many of the references were to copies of articles from 1908, 1912, etc. Curiouser and curiouser........