Rob, Neville for what it’s worth: I compared Neville’s framed ZAR badge with one in my collection that can be traced back to the owner in the Boer War. They are identical although it seems that Neville’s framed badge was gilded which make lines and details appear a fraction thicker. The details in the framed badge however do preclude that it was a copy made of a cast of a real one, so it is safe to conclude that it was stamped on original dies. This leaves 3 possibilities: Badge was issued and salvaged from a uniform item, it came from unissued stock in Pretoria or it was produced at some stage on the original dies in the UK. It looks too perfect and shiny to me to support field use. Also, if reproductions had been made on real dies it would not be a scarce badge (which it is) and there would at the time have been no reason to charge double the price for it of a real British badge as per the advertisement. Also, dies show wear when large numbers of badges are produced, which means that there would be unused badges in the market with diminished detail. I have not encountered these. So my money is on unissued stock.
Neville, the fact that end product and dies were sent to Bloemfontein from Germany unfortunately doesn’t preclude a post war English production. The war-souvenir hunger from soldiers (and their guests) was sheer insatiable and the stuff the Brits and Colonials schlept home from the Republics is sometimes utterly baffling. For example, Lady Sarah Wilson did some co-ransacking of Koos DelaRey’s residence and the documents that she brought home included many which had absolutely nothing to do with the war. OVS Badge dies must have been prized loot and like the dies of the veldpond almost certainly ended up in the UK if they hadn’t been properly hidden or destroyed. This only means that OVS badges could have been produced later, it doesn't mean that it actually happened.
