Union Jack – brand new British made vitreous enamel badge inlaid into a keyfob in black pigskin leather

We are proud to be able to offer these keyrings with these brand new British made vitreous enamel Union Jack badges.

These are the very last vitreous enamel badges which we were able to have made in Britain – the manufacturer went out of business during covid and these badges were produced just before he closed his doors.

We have a limited stock of these keyrings with these lovely badges – when they have all been sold this listing will be cancelled.

Sadly vitreous enamel badges will now have to be obtained from overseas and those that we ordered recently were not up to our standard .

These lovely ‘old school’ vitreous enamel Union Jack badges were made in Birmingham and we have inlaid them into keyfobs in vintage black pigskin leather .

The badges are in the most lovely red & cobalt blue jewellery grade vitreous enamel – the red enamel is translucent showing the stippled texture of the ground below .

The badges are bonded to a thin oversize brass plate and then inlaid & stitched into the keyfobs – this is something  which we have been doing with badges like these for many years – not always with pigskin leather of course.

Pigskin leather was ( and is ) a luxurious material which was occasionally used for keyfobs ( almost always for prestige cars )

It was always expensive and was prized for it’s appearance and hard wearing characteristics and was ideal for keyfobs which do receive a lot of handling .

Pigskin leather seems to be a thing of the past and very difficult to find in the grade needed for making keyfobs – the material which we have was sourced from a closed Midlands factory which had been using it for covering hip flasks and making wallets and keyrings .

These badges are based on originals which were made in the 1960s at a time when Great Britain was leading the world in car production and many overseas customers would have been proud to have had this Union Jack badge on the keyring of their car which had been made in England – especially enthusiast’s cars such as Austin Healey, Jaguar & Triumph which sold to a huge export market .

Those original badges were produced by Heath Machin & Co. of Walsall, England in the 1960s and we do still come across odd examples which we remount onto new leather keyfobs whenever we can ( one currently listed unless now sold )

Bud Marston describes original examples of these Union Jack keyfob badges in his major work ‘Vintage Jaguar Keyrings’ featured at the beginning of our Jaguar section here in this website shop .

We cannot improve on Bud’s description of those original badges which we quote here ( with Bud’s permission of course ! ) …………….

” Many such talismans accompanied their proud owners down the long and winding roads of yesteryear and for that reason deserve honourable mention alongside their more prominent relatives “

By ‘prominent relatives’ Bud was of course making reference to Jaguar keyrings which were his main subject .

Maybe one day in the future beautiful quality vitreous enamel badges like these will once again be made in England ……………………..but the areas where the workshops once stood have now generally been built over with housing estates and the craftsmen with their knowledge and skills have gone .