military stuff

[jerseyben]

Picked up this military stuff at a sale yesterday. Not my area of expertise. What is it and what is it worth?

 

[diggummup]

The eagle is an Army officers cap eagle. The sleeve patches are Air force senior airmen and staff sargeant (blue stripe across the bottom), the perched eagle pin is a Navy chief Petty Officer 1st Class collar device. Unless I missed something, they all appear to be modern so values aren't much, maybe $5 for the cap badge and $1 each for the rest.

 

[ScubaDetector]

The eagle is an Army officers cap eagle. The sleeve patches are Air force senior airmen and staff sargeant (blue stripe across the bottom), the perched eagle pin is a Navy chief Petty Officer 1st Class collar device. Unless I missed something, they all appear to be modern so values aren't much, maybe $5 for the cap badge and $1 each for the rest.

I think you are mistaken on the senior airman patch. That looks like a sergeant patch. The senior airman patch the star wasn't blue. I got out in 1980 so I could be mistaken myself.

 

[jerseyben]

The eagle is an Army officers cap eagle. The sleeve patches are Air force senior airmen and staff sargeant (blue stripe across the bottom), the perched eagle pin is a Navy chief Petty Officer 1st Class collar device. Unless I missed something, they all appear to be modern so values aren't much, maybe $5 for the cap badge and $1 each for the rest.

Thank you!

 

[diggummup]

I think you are mistaken on the senior airman patch. That looks like a sergeant patch. The senior airman patch the star wasn't blue. I got out in 1980 so I could be mistaken myself.

Had to look it up just now. Looks like it changed to blue in late '75. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Air_Force_enlisted_rank_insignia

In a 30 December 1975 directive the grade of Sergeant was split into two separate ranks while retaining the grade of E-4. Senior Airman would be the last junior enlisted tier rank while Sergeant would remain the first rank in the NCO tier. The impetus behind this was to laterally promote senior E-4 airmen who were ready for NCO responsibilities but not prepared to take on the role of a Staff Sergeant. This permitted airmen who had not yet reached the AFSC 5-skill level to achieve the pay grade of E-4, while according those who had NCO status. To differentiate the two ranks, the directive changed the silver star in the center of Airman, Airman First Class and Senior Airman changed to blue while the star on Sergeant chevrons remained silver.

 

[GibH]

I always thought splitting E-4 into 2 different ranks was kind of dumb. At any rate, the current rank for that patch is Senior Airman, there are no more buck sergeants.