Bronze collar disk

Great find!!

I may well be wrong, but I think I remember those with numbers were national guard units.

I was wrong. I found one on this site. It was a unit designation.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=...WQ30gFbOL3KGZDpQA&sig2=zYlNKfG24v-zsjoD_4rF_w

Thanks for the link, Duggar! It says it's for the 58th Unit. I'm not entirely sure what "unit" means in this case but that site is great

In 1918 (I believe, don't quote me) they switched having the regimental number to the US, USNA, USNG, etc disk instead of on the branch disk. This has changed back and forth a few times, and in today's Army insignia numbered and lettered insignia is relatively unheard of for reasons you will soon understand. The way the original style worked is rather simple, but required a lot of insignia, for instance the old style would be lets say a 58 over crossed rifles and a F under, that would be the 58th Infantry Regiment, F Company. The updated style would have crossed rifles with a F under and the 58 of the US disk to represent the same thing. This may seem silly (and personally I prefer the first style) but it caused a logistical, manufacturing, and monetary nightmare. You would have a 1st Infantry with no company (unassigned, staff, etc), then A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, K, L, M, S as well as MG (with Infantry and Cavalry units) and HQ. That is 16 different disks. Now go through 2nd, 3rd, 4th, 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th, 12th........ all the way up into the 300s (many numbers were passed over) and that is just for infantry. Now crossed cannons, do the same thing for Artillery, sabers for Cavalry (far fewer regiments, but still a lot), etc. They even have numbered Engineers, Medical, Signal Corp, etc. I have hundreds of different numbered disks in my collection, there are thousands upon thousands of different ones in existence (any collector that ever says he has them all is an utter and complete moron who hasn't the slightest understanding of collar disks). With the design change you could have just company marked disks (plain, A, B, C, D, etc) with rifles, cannons, sabers, castles, flags, etc and used the same numbered US disk for all of the above. This greatly reduced the number of different dies needed, cut down on manufacturing costs, and made supplying disks much easier. My word of advice though, don't get into collecting them. They are highly addictive!

Charlie

One more than fifty seven...