Interesting find. It’s a pilot’s cap badge. This listing from Flying Tiger Antiques suggests it to be “sixth issue” from c.1960:
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Yours also has the “B in Shield” maker mark for L.G. Balfour of Attleboro, Massachusetts. I think ARC is correct that it says 1/10 10K, which does mean it’s gold-filled. That’s another way of saying “rolled gold” which means it’s plated, but with a thicker layer than you would get from electro-plating.
However, while electro-plating gives you a layer of pure precious metal, gold-fill can be any desired fineness of gold and usually a rather lower fineness. So, here, you have an item plated with 10k gold (41.7% fine), of which 1/10th the total weight is the plating. That means a smidgeon over 4% of the total metallic weight is actual gold.
There’s a handy calculator at the link below (you need to look up the spot price for gold first):
https://www.goldnscrap.com/post/gold-filled-calculator
Depending on how damaged it is, I would think it probably worth more to a collector as a
Hey guys I live in vero beach and after the recent hurricane I went out this morning to metal detect on the beach. This was a huge signal and was deep. I got it out Finally after fighting the waves and I'm not sure what it is. I think it's a pilots badge from eastern airlines but not sure. It says 10k on the back which is amazing to me. But what on earth would this have been doing in the ocean
Anyone have any ideas what to make of this?
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You never know what’s next and the best part is finding the history behind what you found and the mystery of how it became there
