The differences between real or hard enamel and new or synthetic enamel.

A badge that was made during the 1980s or before will almost certainly be made of hard or real enamel. Many badges made during the 1990s will also be made of real enamel and even today, some badges are still made in real enamel although they're becoming scarce. Synthetic or new enamel was invented in 1985 and, during the 1990s, slowly began to replace real enamel as the material most commonly used for badge manufacture. It seems obvious to me that this was done for speed and economy as nothing is ever replaced by a method that is slower and more expensive.
However, speed and economy are, in my opinion, poor substitutes for quality. I'm not saying synthetic enamel badges are bad or that it's wrong to make, sell or collect them. I'm just saying that I prefer the older, real enamel badges.
It's true that new or synthetic enamel badges are neater in appearance and can be produced with much finer detail than real or hard enamel badges. It's also true that real enamel badges can look cruder and have manufacturing flaws in them such as the colour missing from inside the loop of a letter P or the triangle of a letter A for example. I've seen many real enamel badges that, while in mint condition, are far from perfect due to how they were made.
Personally speaking though, I much prefer - and only collect - real enamel badges as they are the badges that were around at the time I enjoyed football the most.
Bygone badges from a bygone age of football.

My real pet hate when it comes to badges, even if made of real enamel, is the push spike or push pin with the butterfly clip fixing. Again, obviously a quicker and cheaper method of producing a badge fastening than applying a proper folding pin. In the past I've lost badges that I've worn with this type of fixing due to the fact that it isn't a very secure method and the butterfly clip can easily just pull right off. Badges with this type of fixing also tend to rotate while being worn like a wheel turning on it's axle. Horrendous!

Below are two pictures of the same badge in both real and synthetic enamels (real enamel on the left) with the synthetic enamel badge being a modern repro. Even if a badge says 1971, it doesn't necessarily mean that this was when it was made. You should see that the badge on the right looks neater and sharper than the other, while the badge on the left has heavier looking letters, figures and borders. Hard enamel badges are usually a bit thicker as well.
Hard enamel is very similar in appearance to glass and is just as hard. Unfortunately, it can also crack and chip like glass. Some hard enamel is actually transparent or translucent enabling the dotted or speckled surface of the metal beneath to be seen such as in the blue enamel on the left hand badge. The colours of some synthetic enamel badges can often look a bit lurid as well.
When I first started collecting I could tell the two apart only if I held them in my hand and had the chance to physically examine them but I couldn't tell from just looking at a photograph online. Because of this I ended up with a few synthetic enamel badges bought in error, especially as many eBay sellers mistakenly describe new or synthetic enamel badges as being made of enamel.
Now I know what to look for I find the differences are obvious, even in a photograph.

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Coffer Badges

One of the most attractive makes of vintage football badge, as far as I'm concerned, is the Coffer badge. They are a good quality badge made from real enamel and, to me, sum up what football badges are all about. With a Coffer badge you know that you have a truly vintage badge that dates, at the latest, to the early 1980s and not a remake. There are, or were, other makers of good quality football badges such as Miller, Squire and Reeves but Coffers are probably the best known and easiest to obtain. They usually come with the distinctive 'safety pin' type fastening on the back although I've also seen them with the sprung pin and hook usually found on other badges.
No push pin and butterfly clip here!
There are a few Coffer badges whose designs border slightly on the absurd - such as Superman flying through the air with the caption Arsenal (or any team) Supermen, but on the whole they usually consist of good sensible designs and shapes celebrating cup wins, shaped like flags and Union Jacks, football boots or simply the team's crest in various shapes and forms.
Another thing I like about Coffer badges is their use of translucent red enamel - for teams with red in their strip obviously. Red enamel can come in opaque or translucent varieties. I don't mind the opaque variety but I much prefer the translucent which allows the speckled texture of the metal beneath to be seen through the enamel.
Coffer badges are usually stamped Coffer London or Coffer Northampton on the reverse. I say usually because I have seen, and do own, a small number of badges that, while having all the characteristics of a Coffer badge - the 'safety pin' type fastening for example - aren't stamped on the reverse. There is some debate as to whether these are indeed Coffer badges that simply haven't been stamped or whether they are equally good quality copies from the same period.
Two downsides I've noticed about Coffer badges are that the gold coloured plating can sometimes come off in places to reveal the dull metal beneath and that the transluscent red enamel can darken with age to an almost black colour in certain areas of the badge.

I have marked any Coffer badges I have as such in the Badges section when viewed.

Coffer Badges in Away Colours

There are a small number of badges that were produced in the style of Coffer but in the away colours of yellow and blue.
As far as I know, these aren't marked Coffer on the reverse although this doesn't necessarily mean they weren't made by Coffer and it certainly doesn't mean that they are in any way inferior. Unfortunately they do seem to be a lot rarer than the red and white Arsenal Coffer badges.

Thanks to Peter for the below photo.

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Cannons and Cups

It might be noticed that some of the cannons and some of the cups I've drawn in the Badge Directory look nothing like the real thing. They've been drawn this way to show an accurate (or near accurate) example of the badge itself and not the original cannon on the pre 2002 crest or the real FA and League cups. Some of the cannon and cup designs on Coffer badges for example are quite different from the 'originals' but I've attempted to show this in the drawings rather than trying to draw the cannon or cup as it is or was in reality.

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Arsenal Old and New

This is very difficult to explain or put into words but I would best describe the differences between the 'old' and 'new' Arsenal as follows. Imagine an old pub that has been standing for the past two hundred years or more. The pub is then closed down to be demolished and make way for some new flats to be built. All the pub's regulars are very unhappy about this unfortunate turn of events but they are told not to worry because a brand new pub is going to be built just around the corner. Not only that, but this new pub will have the same name as the old pub, sell the same beer and have the same landlord. Will this new pub be the same as the old pub? Of course not. The old pub had years of history behind it, had stories and memories for those that drank there and had it's own unique character and atmosphere. The new pub, in comparison, will be sterile, without atmosphere and have no history or memories attached to it even though it will be used by the same people that used the old pub. In fact, it's a safe bet that when the regulars go to the new pub their main topic of conversation will be the old pub. It can be argued that, as the years and decades pass by, the new pub will collect memories and develop an atmosphere but this isn't much comfort to those that have just experienced the change.

A football team is more than just a name, eleven men and the colours they wear. It too, has history and memories attached to it, and the history and memories become the foundations that the very character of the ground is built upon so that the ground and the team become virtually one and the same in the minds of the supporters.
The face of football has changed over the past twenty five years or so. Sponsorship and celebrity seem to be as important - if not more important - than the game itself when it comes to the major Premiership teams. Add to this the fact that Arsenal no longer play at Highbury - where their history, character and memories remain - together with things that are, perhaps, less important such as the changed crest and you end up with something completely different from the original in my opinion.
An Arsenal fan that I used to work with had his father's ashes scattered at Highbury - this man's father had watched Arsenal play at Highbury for almost all of his life. Little were they to know of the changes that were on the horizon. It could be argued that Highbury was still a good place to scatter this man's ashes because this is where he spent his lifetime of watching Arsenal but I would imagine that he, and his son, expected Arsenal to continue playing at Highbury for a very long time to come.

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Collecting Advice

I realise that most people don't need help or advice on how to collect things but I have been asked by one or two people for any collecting tips I might have.
I can't think why as I'm no 'expert'. These are only my opinions. Others, of course, will have different opinions. Anyway, here goes.


Try to aim for a moderately sized collection of vintage and scarcer badges as opposed to a vast collection of modern new enamel badges. Quality beats quantity every time. A smaller collection of 100 to 200 good quality vintage badges probably won't cost any more - or even as much - as a collection of, say, 1500 modern badges in the long run and, if you ever change your mind or lose interest in collecting football badges, a smaller collection of vintage badges will be far easier to sell than a vast collection of modern stuff.


If you have the opportunity to buy a badge that you're after then take it. Don't let it pass by while telling yourself that another one will turn up eventually. It may do in time but if it's a rare badge you might have to wait ages - years even - before the chance to buy another one comes along and by then it will probably be even more expensive.


Be prepared to pay over the odds if you have to. Some of the rarer Coffer badges may go as high as £30.00 on eBay. This can be a silly price to pay for an enamel badge but if that's what it takes to beat the competion then that's what it takes.
I would argue that it's better to spend £30.00 on one rare vintage badge than £30.00 on, say, ten modern badges. Of course, that's a question of choice for the individual.


Try to make as many contacts as you can. Get to know people with the same interest as they will almost certainly, at some point in time, have a badge that you're after and will happily sell it or swap it with you. This is also a good way to swap or sell on any unwanted badges that you may have.


In a nutshell, you have to be patient, ruthless, lucky, shrewd, have deep pockets and keep your eyes open.

  

Photographing Badges

I would have thought photographing badges would be a fairly easy and straightforward process. Surely, all you have to do is point the camera, focus and press the button.
That's how it might work in theory, but in practice it's a bit more difficult than that - for me anyway. I've never been good with flash, and I've found that using flash to photograph badges is a nightmare. The reflective surface of the badge acts like a mirror and the whole thing comes out like a bright white blob. Even with enough light to do away with needing flash it can still be a bit tricky. Because they are shiny and reflective, the metal words and pictures on the badge look dull when they don't catch the light and bright when they do. This means you need them to look bright when the enamel background is a dark colour and dull when the enamel background is a light colour or they can look almost invisible. This, of course, is easier said than done when the badge has both dark and light coloured enamels.
Another thing I've found is that badges don't seem to look as good in a photograph as they do in reality. Any little mark or flaw on the badge is picked up, magnified and highlighted in all it's glory and seems to be ten times worse than it actually is thus making a good badge look as if it's a poorly made or damaged one. Colours can also appear lurid and of a slightly different shade to what they are in reality.
After many attempts at photographing each indivudual badge I've finally achieved a result that, while not as good as I'd like it to be, is acceptable.

A Funny Story

Here's a funny story that happened to me in either 1980 or 1981, I can't remember which. At that time I was working as a lathe operator in the machine shop of an engineering and metalworks factory that was based in Wembley on an industrial estate behind Wembley Stadium. One morning, the bloke that operated the lathe next to mine didn't show up for work and I was instructed to work on his lathe rather than the one I usually worked on. A lathe is one of those things where people either know what it is or they have no idea what it is - there doesn't seem to be any in between. If you don't know what a lathe is I won't go into details here but I will say that most lathes incorporate a spout that is directed towards the metal that is being machined and that this spout squirts coolant onto the work to prevent it from getting too hot.
The coolant then collects in a tray situated underneath where a pump sucks it up and squirts it out again so it's in constant circulation.
This coolant didn't exactly smell nice at the best of times and the fact that the bloke that usually worked on this machine was a heavy smoker - who would chuck his cigarette ends into the tray that collected the coolant - made it really stink. The colour of the coolant was usually pink but on this machine it was a kind of disgusting murky pinkish grey with soggy dog ends floating in it.
After a while, this smell began to make me feel pretty queasy so I asked if I could go back to the machine I usually worked on but I was told that bad smells are all part and parcel of engineering work and that I had to stay where I was. By the end of the day I was feeling quite ill.
If you've read this far without giving up you may be wondering what any of this has to do with Arsenal. Read on and you will see.
That evening Arsenal were playing at home and it was a pretty important qualifier so my mates and me had decided to go straight from work as we usually did when going to an evening game. As I was feeling so ill I should have dropped out and just gone home but I didn't want to miss the match and was sure that I would soon feel better once I was out in the fresh air and away from that stinking machine.
When we arrived at Highbury the ground was packed absolutely solid due to it being a qualifying game. When I say packed I mean that the terraces were literally packed like sardines. I had assumed I'd make a quick recovery being out in the fresh air but I was wrong and after about thirty minutes into the game I started to feel sweaty and nauseous. I turned to one of my mates and told him that I felt like I was going to throw up.
"You'd better go to the toilets" he said.
"I'll never make it through this crowd" I said. "It's too packed." So I stayed where I was and gritted my teeth in the hope that the feeling would soon pass. Suddenly, and without any warning, I puked up a stream of pink vomit. Without anywhere for me to go or turn, the sick went all over the back of the legs of the bloke standing in front of me. He must have felt something because he briefly turned his head slightly although not enough to look at me directly. I then slowly began to make my way along the crowded terrace so that by half time I was a good few yards away from him. He obviously hadn't known what had happened and it's quite likely that he didn't discover the sick all down the back of his trousers until after the game. It still makes me laugh although I wasn't laughing at the time. I doubt if the bloke I was sick over found it very funny either.