6/18/24 Report - A Few More Lapel Pin Finds: VFW, VFW Auxiliary, and Honorable Service or Ruptured Duck. Surf Getting Rougher.

 

Wiitten by the TreasureGuide for the exclusive use of the Treasure Beaches Report.

Veterans of Foreign Wars Lapel Pin.

Not too long ago I noticed how many lapel pins I've found.  I didn't remember how many I found, and thought I should put them together and look to see what I have.  I started some posts on the topic, but only did a few.  I plan to go through many more.  I'll show a few more today.

The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), formally the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States, is a patriotic organization of U.S. war veterans who fought in wars, campaigns and expeditions on foreign land, waters, or airspace as military service members.  Established on September 29, 1899, in Columbus, Ohio, the VFW is headquartered in Kansas City Missouri.  It was federally chartered in 1936.

I don't know the date of this pin yet.

The back of the pin shows it is gold filled.  I was surprised to learn this pin and several of my others are gold filled.

Back of VFW Lapel Pin.

Veterans of Foreign Wars - Wikipedia

Sticking with the VFW, here is another lapel pin find.

VFW Ladies Auxiliary Pin.

The Auxiliary, which was founded in 1914 to help veterans and their families, is the backbone of VFW volunteer efforts. Promoting patriotism and helping veterans in need are just two of the many ways that the Auxiliary serves America's communities. The Auxiliary also has its own volunteer programs directed at VA, State, and Community Hospitals.

For as long as men have been going into battle, women have been nursing sick and wounded warriors back to health. Until recently, this was a necessity because governments did not provide adequate medical facilities for their servicemen. In fact, medical care was often so abysmal that more men died of disease and food poisoning than of wounds.

Today, the Auxiliary is involved in a kaleidoscopic range of activities. While continuing to support the VFW and its causes, the Auxiliary has developed a social conscience of its own. With the paramount goal of helping families in distress, its members perform community service, fund cancer research, fight drug abuse and illiteracy, advocate for the rights of the elderly, and support the VFW National Home, Special Olympics, and other worthy causes...

Here is the link for more about that.

VFW Post 12024 - Ladies Auxiliary History & Purpose (vfw12024.org)

Here is another.  This one is a common pin that many people will recognize.

Honorable Service Lapel Button.

The Honorable Service Lapel Button, colloquially called "Ruptured Duck" by the members of the military, was a lapel button awarded for honorable Federall military service between 1925 and 1946. The award, designed by Anthoney De Francisi, was issued for wear on the left lapel of civilian clothing upon discharge.

The U. S. Department of War and the Navy sued the lapel button to eligible servicemen and women upon discharge. It was made of gilt brass, except during metal shortages during which it was made of gilt plastic. (From Wikipedia)

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Lapel pins, like most artifacts, provide information.  Unlike many objects, lapel pins are meant primarily to communicate.  They project personal identity, and membership, association or support of a product or cause.  The pins I posted today are good examples of that.  They communicate by word and symbol.

I am not one to wear pins, or shirts or hats or much of anything that presents an obvious message to random people.  When I was younger, however, I did wear the jackets of my high school and college teams, but most of my life I had no interest in projecting my personal identity to the random world.  I do occasionally wear a hat or jacket with a message these days, but it is almost always a find.  Almost all of my hats are finds, so if you see me wearing a Celtics or Bears hat, it actually has nothing to do with me other than the fact I found it.  People will often take a hat or something like that as a statement of personal identity even when it is not.  

Lapel pins, though, are usually worn very purposely with a personal meaning and communicate something like support of veterans or honorable service.  Sometimes they are product or company advertisements, such as the Red Dot Champion pin that I posted not too long ago.

While lapel pins are very personal objects having the primary purpose of communicating or projecting personal identity, most artifacts do communicate intentional specific messages as well as more obscure general information.  Coins carry messages about value, kings, countries and more.

Even purely utilitarian items tell you something about the people that made them and used them as well as the history and time period they came from.

Lapel pins provide are interesting finds that can say a lot about the owner, but some are also very attractive.  I never took them seriously enough before, but looking back over my finds, they are informative, aesthetic and some actually have some gold content.  Any long-time detectorist will be able to assemble a fairly large collection from various time periods.

Once again, I find that I should have been more organized with my finds.  I wish I had kept them together.  I've found many more of them and will post some more in the future.

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Surf Chart for Fort Pierce Area from Surfguru.com.

We'll be getting a little more surf, although it will be mostly from the east.  Still there will be a few front beaches that get stirred up a bit.

Good hunting,

Treasureguide@comcast.net