You may all be aware that Regimental Cap badges, uniforms and logos of units in the current order of Battle (Serving units) are in the process of being changed to convert the Queens Crown and ER-II Cypher to a Kings Crown and CR-III Cypher.
Unfortunately in the heat or confusion in doing it our cap badge was changed and the design licensed for use, under copyright, by the MoD, for Merchandisers to sell clothing and other items using that logo. I.E. Hoodies, Sweatshirts, sports clothing, glassware, mugs, badges, hip-flasks, etc. Most sellers are on Amazon and eBay. The ‘new’ logo is as per what you see on the right of the page. It’s not pretty and it’s not awful; it’s somewhere in the middle, sort of pretty-awful.
I queried it’s redesign with the MoD Copyright office, based on both why it needed to be redesigned in the first place, as the regiment is no longer an active unit, plus that the ‘crown’ on the cap badge was not actually a ‘Queens’ crown, but a Ducal Coronet, as noted by Major Harrap (Ret’d). Our cap badge had remained the same since the 33rd and 76th merged, through the time of Queen Victoria and King Edward VIII, then Queen Elizabeth II, until the Regiment was taken out of the Order of Battle, on 6th June 2006.
My query was forwarded from the Copyright Office to Whitehall and a Lt Col Simson replied, advising that he was looking into the issue and waiting for the last authorised design of the badge, ie. a Warrant signed by a Monarch, to be sent to him. After seeing it he would get back to me. Today I received a reply from Lt Col Simson, in which he agreed with what I had stated in my query; And that he had passed it back to the MoD for the Badge to be updated (The licensed Portal design), i.e. to return it to what was in the last authorised warrant.
This is the reply I received:-
Dear Richard