Original Item: Only One Available. The 1st King’s Dragoon guards, a cavalry regiment was raised in 1685 as The Queen’s Regt. of Horse and renamed the King’s Own Regt. of Horse in 1714 and finally the 1st King’s Dragoon Guards in 1751.
In 1896 its cap badge was changed to a Doubled Headed Austrian Eagle to honor its new Colonel-in-Chief, Emperor Franz Joseph 1st of Austria but this was abandoned at the outbreak of WW1. It was re-instated in 1937 when the regiment ceased to be a cavalry regiment and was then equipped with tanks.
This fabulous Regimental crop was issued after 1937 for use as a Swagger stick and sign of the officer’s rank, status and prestige.
Beautifully manufactured, it has a heavy silver colored top, possibly sterling, very heavily embossed with the Double Headed Eagle Badge re-adopted in 1937. The shaft is leather covered for 6-inch to a wide silver band, again possibly sterling, and from there on is very finely platted leather over a flexible core. A leather symbolic horse switch remains at the tip.
This is exactly what the officer’s loved to beat down the side of a long leather knee boot when making a point. “Don’t you know?”, a little bit of “Old England” that probably came from one of its best houses that today are either health centers, hotels or still in limited use for TV series like Downton Abbey.
Ready to display or for beating your boot.