Hi All, clearly I don't check greekchat very often or I would have seen this thread a lot earlier.
Dyer-Ratliff is/was (their phone has been disconnected, but their website is still up??) a jeweler based in Indianapolis, and has been making badges for the last ~100 years. sidebar: does anyone know definitively if they have gone out of business? While they are not the official fraternity jeweler, it is/was possible to order a custom badge with a gem of your choosing. Many of the Indiana Chapters (Alpha, Beta,Gamma specifically) ordered up custom badges during the 30's-60's for their members, often in custom gem configurations like this. These badges are/were not cheap, but of a MUCH higher quality than the standard badges of today. You get what you pay for!
My chapter has a Dyer badge as the president's pin, which I ordered when I was the chapter VPF. It is plain, with no gems, but it has such spectacular elongated points that it does not need any embellishment. Part of the officer job sell for the president is that you get to wear the pointy badge! I was very disturbed to find the badge was damaged and almost lost over the last 2 years-I worked with the chapter president to get it repaired and it is now being worn again, proudly at official chapter events. Yay!
a few words on the winning bid price. Dyer badges come up on ebay every so often and sell for top dollar, usually upwards of $500. ( vs. the ~$100 or so for std pearl badges from balfour/burrpatt) This opal dyer is the first to show up in 10+ years, and maybe the third opal badge to come to ebay ever. Hence the high price and the willingness of the winning bidder to pay top dollar. I've written at length about badge collectors (I consider myself one and have many collector friends) on other threads in the Theta forum so I won't rehash any (polarizing) opinions here.
Incidentally, there is no prohibition against opals (or any other gem combo) in our current badges-you just have to do a custom order from the jeweler. In the interest of full disclosure I should mention modern day opals are not as high a quality as those in older pieces (good opals are not cut up into small chips nowadays!). If you choose to order a custom badge, i would recommend you ask the jeweler to send you a few loose gems for approval prior to shelling out the $$ for a custom badge you might hate. The deposit on the stones should around $50. My husband did this for me a few years ago..
With the holidays coming, I'm going to remind everyone about the crummy 'marriage' pieces starting to appear on ebay, just in time for the holidays. (in jewelry terms, a 'marriage' = 'multiple pieces not originally meant to be married together'). Anything w/a coat-of-arms on it is suspect, so be wary. There have been a number of ebay sales this year w/loose c-o-a pieces for sale. These get purchased and glued on cheap base metal trinkets and resold for high profit. Often they are marketed as 'old'. If the listing doesn't state the specific metal content (10k/14k/sterling) it probably isn't a quality item. Look at the photos carefully! Re-read the listing and look for language around the age of the piece too. Buyer beware! I've seen so many of these over the last 2 years go for $$$, and those buyers were completely conned! If you have a specific question-just PM me. I'll try to be better about checking my messages here.
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