After decades of thorough and careful research by major collectors - not least Colin Dodds who has been researching and cataloguing the range of official items produced by Robertson's for decades - there is not much left in the golly world to be discovered...

...but every now and then a variation appears that has not before been seen before. This is what happened when I was recently sent a nice white waistcoat standard by Fattorini. The first thing I did was to compare it against the copy of this badge that I have in my own collection. At first glance it appears to be the usual Fattorini type 3a-1 backstamp:

Close to actual size

Although its not a common badge to find it is still quite easily obtainable so I didn't think too much about it, but just before I pinned it back into place something caught my eye that made me want to take a closer look. I'm not sure what it was, but thankfully I did, otherwise this variation might never have been discovered.

I got my eye piece out and studied very carefully and soon it became clear - the patterns of bobbles were all slightly different between the two badges. Closer inspection with a magnifying glass reveals it is indeed a completely different backstamp:

On the first badge the bobbles appear randomly positioned whereas they are much more uniformly spaced on the second one... not something that could have been produced by the same Die and therefore clearly a different backstamp! Details of this variation have been passed to the team who compile the official Golly Checklist so should be recorded as a new variation in the future. I'm always on the look out for interesting golly badges and Robertsons collectables, if you are looking to sell Robertsons Golly Badges or simply want a free valuation feel free to contact me I pay the best prices guaranteed.

I also buy complete collections of Robertsons Golly Badges and memorabilia!