TOPIC:

Thank you, Frank. BMR medals have been turning up recently, probably sold off by disinterested descendants, Any contemporary badges are likely to have been lost long ago, leaving behind another enduring mystery.
Regards
Brett

Hello Brett,
A lot of badges left South Africa in the 1970's, simply because they had very little value there, few people were interested and I suspect that is still the case, the really good South African collections of people like Alec Milne, Harry McKenzie and Frank Mitchell are long gone, they were the gentlemen who actually bought up the really old items, sometimes from their original owners and their children.
One of the issues is that the people who collect badges tend not to collect medals and of course, the same is true of many people who collect medals, it is and always was, two differing ways of collecting, so you and I are perhaps rather more unusual hybrids?
Kind regards Frank

Frank
I collected badges from returned WWII servicemen in the 1950's, but only got back to them and a start on medals about 15 years ago. I have been a "bottom-feeder" with both, so most of what is in my collection is very ordinary. There is nothing that might be an elusive Umzimkulu Mounted Rifles badge!
Regards
Brett

Hello Brett,
I don't think that I've ever had one, but, I'll have to check, with the Umvoti MR, the Edwardian stuff, in itself is pretty scarce, but, quite frankly, all the Natal Volunteers and Militia stuff is the same, they were really rather few in number, the Colony was not the most wealthy in the Empire.
Yet, that said, the basic quality of their uniforms and accoutrements was really rather good, the vast bulk of it made here, of course, I like it all very much and always have.
Kind regards Frank

Another local collector has pointed out that the Umzimkulu Mounted Rifles existed for only a few years (1884-1888), with a maximum enrolment of about 100 (according to Goetzsche), so there would not have been an abundance of badges made. Also, southern Natal may then have been one of the less affluent areas of the Colony, so perhaps the UMR never had their own badge after all.

There was a similar situation with Natal's volunteer regimental badges a few years earlier during the 1870's. The districts of Newcastle and Dundee in northern Natal both raised regiments - the Newcastle Mounted Rifles (1875 - 1879) and Buffalo Border Guard (1871 - 1879). Their enrolments during the Zulu War were 38 (NMR) and 26 (BBG). The Newcastle regiment never had a badge, and simply painted NMR on their white helmets. By contrast, the BBG had a rather splendid uniform and wore their distinctive buffalo badge on both crossbelt and cap. Thus, there were no NMR badges for posterity to collect, and probably less than 100 from the BBG. There have been exhaustive searches for the latter in the Dundee district, but, as far as I know, only two have been found.

Regards
Brett

LOL, the BBG again!