Pretty AGD pin
 

Hi ladies...

Not sure if you have seen this, but there is a beautiful opal AGD badge on Ebay now :mad:

Sure hope it goes to an AGD sister.

I saw that. I tried to bid on it but someone has an automatic bid going up to Lord knows what price =( i hope the other person is an Alpha Gam too! and yes, it is definitely gorgeous!!!

Um, 1903? We weren't founded until 1904. :rolleyes:

"Estate fresh"??

Doesn't that sound like they took it right off the body?

Somebody explained to the seller that 1903 is a member number for that very reason.

The writing is really faint on the back. I bet it really says 1908.

there is a DG pin on there right now too :(

http://www.ebay.com/itm/VINTAGE-10K-...f#ht_624wt_922

Didn't know it could be ordered with pearls.

How did I miss this? I ebay search AGD almost every day.

The design looks like one of the first badges made by a local jeweler. Note that the Gamma is not "chased" (engraved) the way the standard badges are.

The eBay listing Q&A section says that the badge likely belonged to Cynthia Geer who was initiated into Alpha Chapter in 1958. How would she have gotten by without buying a standard badge? Might she have been a descendant of a founder or early member and have inherited a non-standard badge?

That clasp isn't from 1958. I have one that looks like that and it's from the teens.

Exactly why the back of the badge/pin is just as important as the front, and why the original engraving should be maintained whenever possible, IMO. What stories are told by the backs of our jewelry!

Perhaps the name on the back was not the original owner - and the person had the other name buffed out and hers added. We shall never know.

That opal badge is gorgeous. Does AGD have a collection of rare pins at their HQ? Wonder if they have one like that?

I also found this online:
http://www.archive.org/stream/bullet...luoft_djvu.txt

I found a possible match to the owner's badge, Geer, Charlotte G.,
'03, Stockbridge, Mass. She graduated from Wesleyan in
1903...obviously AGD was founded in 1904. So perhaps she went to
graduate school and that 3 is really an 8? Or maybe she was a charter member of the chapter there and they put her graduation date from college instead of her initiation year? I also google mapped the seller's location to Stockbridge, MA and it's about 14 miles away.

Wow...this badge gets more and more interesting. It needs to go to AGD HQ.

I am sure hoping that AGD HQ has been notified & they are one of the bidders on this beautiful piece of what looks to be AGD's early history...

You're receiving a PM from me, but I bet the big squirrels and IHQ know what I figured out :)

Hopefully I'll be able to share with the rest of you what I know.

VS, I got your PM and tried to PM you back but the system said it didn't go through....

Exqueeze me? Where is my PM?

Me 3, sis!! ;)

Sorry, even though I enabled PMs they were enabled for "but a chosen few" meaning people I let into my circle.

So AGDAlum, was any of that useful information?

Yes, thanks, VS.

From the AGD Facebook page:
"According to our database, Cynthia Geer was initiated into Alpha-Syracuse University in 1958 and is still living. However, after doing a bit more digging, I would bet this belonged to Charlotte Geer Wilcox, who was initiated into Gamma-Wesleyan University in 1906. Her member number listed in the database is 003-20. It is possible that her member number was actually 003-19, and it was listed on her Badge as the 19th initiate of the third chapter to be installed (Gamma). That might explain the 1903 on the back of the Badge. In addition, Charlotte lived in Massachusetts, only about 30 miles from where the eBay listing says this Badge would be shipping from."

Wow I should be a badge investigator! Lol! Glad to know my google searches were somewhat accurate!

Wow! I hope an AGD wins this one.

crashing to comment on the badge back: I would love to hear from someone about the clasp. Specifically, is that a typical clasp for the age of the badge?

I wish there were better pictures of the back. This is why I say that the back is just as interesting as the front, and that it's so important not to buff off the engraving on badges.

Looks like a new bidder swooped in at the last second & scooped the badge up for $510. Any chance we can find out if this was AGD headquarters, an AGD sister or a pin collecter?

I HATE that this site won't divulge bidders anymore. I hate to bid on any historical Theta items for fear I am bidding against HQ.

Now that the auction is over I'll try and remember to post some of what I tracked down for the non Alpha Gams, just some details that I picked up.

Re: the bolded. You can call HQ and ask. You can email as well. It's often useful to let them know if there is something unique or specific that might be of interest to the Fraternity.

I expect other fraternities would have people available (i.e. historian/archivist) who could be contacted.

What a brilliantly simple idea...


smacks self in the head for not thinking of this earlier!! :o

I know that when we've had significant things up on that site, a notice has gone out on the list-serve that HQ is bidding so that everyone on the list knows not to.

I'm hoping, since AGDAlum posted it on our Facebook page that someone close to the top picked it up for the IHQ badge collection. In looking at the bidding history of the winner though, I think it is a collector :(

Come on Vandal!! The non AGDs are waiting for some info!

I am very disappointed if this doesn't end up at the AGD HQ. How could they pass this up?!

Sorry, I had a whole bunch of stuff that took priority.

First thing is that I accepted that 19 03 was not likely a date but that this was an early badge due to the opals on the Alpha and the black enamel of the Gamma. I went to three being Gamma, our very short lived chapter at Wesleyan university in Middletown, Connecticut, and once you and lleduc posted a Charlotte Geer at the same school around the same time, I felt more confident. She graduated in 1903 so that could also be what the 19 03 engraved on the back was for.

Wesleyan was installed as Gamma in 1906, and closed in 1912. Women were no longer admitted after 1909, and were treated horribly by the male students. The information told to me by 'big squirrels" was that these women at Gamma had a squirrel as a local mascot and that was one of the reasons we have Skiouros, to honor the loss of that chapter. as well as squirrels being smart and industrious lil' critters, and squirrels also fit well with our color motif. There was a local organization founded in 1895 that was mentioned in the 1905 Baird's, Zeta Epsilon.

Zeta Epsilon.—A ladies' society founded at Wesleyan University in March, 1895. The membership to date is about 40. The badge is a diamond-shaped shield, displaying the letters "Z E." The colors are white, green and pink.

I have no idea what their jewels were, if any, so perhaps they were opals which is why this badge is opal. Charlotte Graham Geer Wilcox was born March 8, 1878 so she did not choose her birthstone, as opals are associated with October. Like many organizations badges were often made locally, so there wasn't complete standardization, and while researching Charlotte I found a 1915 edition of The Quarterly with an advertisement from D.L. Auld stating that company was our official jeweler. However from a historical document at the University of Illinois (Sigma chapter) J. F. Newman of New York is mentioned as the designer of our second badge with a plain Delta, a chased Gamma, and the Alpha in pearls or diamonds. That citation came from Georgia Dickover's written history and being that she is a founder and was our Inter/national Historian I believe that's true. I haven't pinned down when we switched to D. L. Auld aka Burr Patterson Auld aka Herff Jones and we can't forget L.G. Balfour aka Art Carved.


First thing I did was establish I had the right Charlotte Geer as there were many in Connecticut and then her married name, which is Wilcox, and did some cross referencing which placed her in the area. In 1909 in Ida Shaw Martin's The Sorority Handbook a Charlotte Geer was listed as Treasure of Alpha Gamma Delta Grand Council and living in Middletown, Connecticut (where Wesleyan was located). However she was a teacher and from the Wesleyan alumni publications I was able to track where she went and at that time she was teaching in Seymour, CT ten miles from Middletown. She married Edmund Cleveland Wilcox in 1912, and they had two children, a son Edmund Gillette Wilcox who died in 2002, and Margaret P. Wilcox who I haven't traced to a death yet. Charlotte and Edmund lived in the area where her pin was being sold, as did their son Edmund, and at his death one of his daughters was in the area. Charlotte died in 1971 so if this badge is "estate fresh" perhaps her daughter recently passed or one of her granddaughters. As I mentioned I haven't finished looking for information on her daughter and if she married and if so, kept her last name or if she had children.

When I muddle through that I'll come back and post an update.

Great thanks

Thanks VandalSquirrel....so do y'all know for sure an AGD did not win this?

VandalSquirrel, you are amazing! I like "detective work" and you have a talent in that area, for sure.

As for dates on badges, here's what I did with my new onyx badge: I had "ABC" "BD" and 4-1-11 engraved on the back of it. None of those initials would make sense to anyone else. ABC=Advisory Board Chairman BD = Beta Delta (chapter at UofA) and the date is my official appointment date. I made provisions for the badge upon my demise so it should never end up on any auction site. Still, the explanation will accompany the badge and it may end up lost so someday, there might be another GCer researching the weird engraving on an onyx badge.

You'd think I would have had second thoughts, being appointed on April First. One day I'll tell the tale of my first year as an ABC (if I make it that long).

Unless it is an AGD who also happens to be a collector and a VERY frequent bidder/winner on e_bay, then sadly I fear it was not.

30 day bidding history of the winning bidder

Note they also have a feedback rating of 900. I buy Theta items all the time on that site and my rating is only around 100.

Very interesting and thorough research! Thanks so much for more of the story, VandalSquirrel! :)