How an enamel badge is made, and why it matters

Badges · 7 September 2026

A badge is a small piece of manufacturing, and the manufacturing is legible. The base was struck from sheet metal, the colour was added either as hot enamel fused at high temperature or as cold enamel that is essentially paint under lacquer, and the fastening was attached last. Knowing which route a badge took explains almost everything a collector then asks about it – why it looks the way it does, how it aged, and whether it is what it claims.

The four steps

1. Striking. A die presses the design into sheet brass, tombac or aluminium, creating raised outlines with recesses between them. The sharpness of those outlines is set here and can never be improved later.
2. Filling. Recesses take the colour: powdered glass for hot enamel, or a pigmented resin for cold.
3. Firing or curing. Hot enamel goes into a furnace where the glass melts and bonds to the metal, then the surface is ground and polished flush. Cold enamel simply dries, and is usually finished with a clear lacquer.
4. Fastening. Screw and nut, pin, or clutch, soldered or welded on – the feature that also dates the badge, as set out in the guide to sorting badges by theme.

Hot enamel versus cold

• Depth and gloss. Hot enamel is glass: it has real depth, a wet-looking shine and cool feel. Cold enamel sits flatter and its shine comes from the lacquer above it.
• The boundary. On hot enamel the metal outline is polished flush with the colour, so the edge is razor-sharp. Cold enamel usually creeps slightly over the outline.
• Ageing. Hot enamel chips – it is glass – and shows losses as sharp-edged pits. Cold enamel fades, yellows and can lift as a film, especially where the lacquer has aged.
• Cost. Hot enamel needed a furnace and skilled grinding, so it belongs to awards, early issues and quality pieces; cold enamel was the cheap mass method of later decades.

What the method tells you

The manufacturing route narrows the period and the purpose at once. Heavy brass with hot enamel and a screw fastening points at earlier and award badges; light aluminium with printed or cold-enamel colour and a clutch pin points at late mass souvenirs. That is the same reading used for dating in the guides to military badges and city badges, and it is more reliable than the subject depicted.

How copies give themselves away

• Soft relief. Cast rather than struck: rounded outlines, blurred lettering, no crispness anywhere.
• Paint instead of glass. Colour that rides over the metal outline instead of sitting flush inside it.
• Glued fastening. Original pins are soldered or welded; adhesive is a modern shortcut.
• No maker's mark. Award and factory badges usually carry one on the back.
• Even artificial ageing. Uniform darkening everywhere, rather than wear on the raised parts and patina in the recesses – the same logic as in the guide to telling an original from a copy.

Handling and storage

1. Enamel chips against harder metal, so badges must never be stored loose together – the rule from the guide to storing coins and metal.
2. Never use abrasives or solvents: they scratch glass enamel and dissolve lacquer over cold enamel.
3. Handle by the rim or backing; skin oils mark both metal and lacquer.
4. Photograph at an angle with soft light – enamel behaves like glass and throws a hotspot under a hard lamp, as in the guide to photographing a collection.

The open archive holds 3,332 Soviet badges, enough to compare the two methods side by side across decades and themes.

Open the sections: badges, coins and banknotes.