Butlins holiday camps

Butlins holiday camps

Butlins  Badge

Badge collecting is extremely popular and affordable and with such a variety of subjects to choose from many collectors have opted to specialise.

Some choose a particular theme such as speedway racing, others a particular brand such as Robertson's golly badges. 

Many other collectors have chosen a 'national institution' such as Butlin's. Butlin's badges have some of the most desirable collecting features about them. 

There are hundreds of attractive enamel badges and many different variations produced between the years 1936-1967 for the collector to hanker after.

Butlin's badges were made by | all the major manufacturers.

Butlins  Badge

These include such distinguished names in the badge and jewellery world as Reeves & Co (Jewellers of Tenby Street, Birmingham),Thomas Fattorini, Fattorini and Sons, J.R. Guant of London, Morton Colver and H.W. Miller. Billy Butlin did not invent the idea of badges for holiday makers but he certainly made sure that his 'happy campers' would want to wear them with pride.

Apart from the standard camp and hotel badges there are many other types which carry a price premium and, though often not as attractive as the standard badges, are what the dedicated collector is often after.

Butlins  Badge

These include staff badges, dancing festival badges (many of which were held at a national level), commissionaire, committee and reunion badges - especially for the reunions held at the Royal Albert Hall.

A very rare reunion badge for 1946 could cost between £80 and £100 with the price dropping to between £15 and £20 for reunion badges from the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Butlins holiday camps

Butlins  Badge

The standard Butlin's badges were issued at Ayr, Barry, Bognor, Blackpool, Brighton, Clacton, Filey, Margate, Minehead, Mosney, Pwllheli and Skegness. 

Today only three of the camps (or family entertainment centres), survive and these are at Bognor, Minehead and, the one that started it all off, good old Skeggie. 

 As the Skegness camp S was the first to be built and opened for Easter of 1936 (followed by Clacton in 1938) the pre-war badges are very sought after by collectors.

Butlins  Badge

Skegness had been associated with the motif of the Jolly Fisherman since 1908 when the cartoonist and advertising artist John Hassall had designed the 'Skegness is SO Bracing' poster for the L.N.E.R.

 Billy Butlin utilised this highly popular image on many of the Skegness badges as well as images of fish, mermaids, dolphins, chalets, whales and windmills.

Butlins  Badge

Regional motifs were much used for some of the other camps. Pwllheli badges are often to be found with Welsh dragons and Welsh ladies in traditional costume, there are thistles and dragons for Ayr (the camp opened in 1947), shamrocks and harps for Mosney and images of Blackpool's famous tower.

Other attractive motifs to be found on Butlin's badges . include yachts, parasols, lighthouses, boats, water skiers, sunbursts, bikini-clad girls, stags, beach activities and so on.

Xmas badges depicting seasonal images such as lanterns are highly popular and among the more expensive badges to be found as are the J Butlin's car club and motorcycle club badges.

Butlins  Badge

Recently an attempt has been made to put together, as part of the Millennium celebrations, a Butlin's badge for each camp/hotel for every year that badges were issued.

With such a variety to choose from it's perfectly possible to collect badges from a particular type of badge, such as Staff', Committee badges or a particular motif.

Among the other Button's badges to look out for are 2nd week badges (indication that you were on the second week of your holiday), Grand Bahama Club badges, Butlin's 

Butlins holiday camps

Butlins  Badge

Photographic Service, Button's Physical Recreation and Social Club, the Butlin's Harvey Club (expect to pay around £25 for a good example) and the badges issued for the Butlin's Beavers Club which began in 1951 for children aged 12 years and under.

Prices for badges obviously depend on condition and rarity but many extremely attractive enamel badges from the late 1940s to the 1960s can still be found for between £3-15 each.

You may like to read the   Billy Butlin review