Identifying an old pin

[Togath]

While I was looking through some of my great-grandmother's jewelery(since I find it interesting to seeif I can figure out how old some of it is), I came across an old red cross volunteer pin.
A quick google search gives "world war II".. but I can't find mucnh more than that.
I did find a picture of another;
http://thumbs2.ebaystatic.com/d/l225/m/mDUKLwrshlNTuuIR2476TxA.jpg
But other than that, I can't figure out the difference between it, and another world war II red cross medal, that lacks the star around the cross, which seems the be the version that's easier to find pictures of.

[Brother Oni]

From other pictures of that type of badge, there should be some letters and numbers stamped on the back - those should help you identify the providence of it.

That said, what did you want to identify regarding the item? Usually this sort of thing is about what it is, but that's fairly obvious in this case.

[factotum]

I'm guessing he wants more information about the exact time period the pin comes from, given they seem to have changed design over the years?

[Brother Oni]

There apparently is an American Red Cross museum (http://www.redcross.org/md/walkersville/museum), so maybe emailing them with a picture of the actual badge might help.

It'd also help us as the only similar one I can find without the star is the "Gray Lady" design, which is for a specific branch of the service (http://www.redcross.org/news/article/Red-Cross-Retrospective-The-Gray-Lady-Service).


http://i.ebayimg.com/00/s/NTMzWDUwNg==/z/PfEAAOxy0QtR7zQD/$T2eC16d,!%298E9s4l8hl4BR7zQDdrcg~~60_35.JPG

[Togath]

*sorry about the lack of response.
I'd mostly been trying to figure out what the significance of the difference between the grey-coloured pin without a star, and my grandmother's blue pin with a star..
Which you answered:smallsmile:
I'm admittedly not very good at figuring out how to look this sort of thing up myself, so thank you

[Brother Oni]

I'm admittedly not very good at figuring out how to look this sort of thing up myself, so thank you

Not a problem. :smallbiggrin:

I quite like helping out these sort of requests as an amateur historian* since it leads me to finding out fascinating little titbits and anecdotes of history, like the American Red Cross used to colour code its volunteers depending on what they did.


*Aka 10 minute search on google