Identifying pilgrim badges and ampullae

Lead-tin devotional souvenirs.

Pilgrim badges are cast in lead-tin alloys, showing a saint or shrine, with pin lugs or sewing loops. Ampullae — small flasks that held holy water — often carry a scallop shell or a crowned W for Walsingham; Canterbury badges for Thomas Becket are the other great English family.

The subject usually identifies the shrine and with it a date range, since shrines rose and fell in popularity. Openwork badges and crisp casting mark the high end of the trade.

Not every badge is devotional: secular and livery badges — hearts, crowns, retainers’ emblems — travelled the same roads and are recorded the same way.

Soft metal takes crisp detail but wears and bends fast; do not try to flatten a folded badge. Record the subject, the fixing (pin or sewn), and every legible letter.

From the guide library inside Collectors Catalogues, a free app for cataloguing antiques and finds with honest, museum-grade records.

More on religious objects

Seals and seal matrices — Reading a reversed device.

Identifying scarabs and amulets — Egyptian protective forms.

Identifying cuneiform tablets — Wedge-marks in clay.

Identifying reliquaries and devotional objects — Containers for the sacred — from enkolpia to house shrines.

Identifying ushabti figures — The mummiform servants of Egyptian burials — and their million imitations.

Identifying icons and devotional art — Painted panels, brass travelling icons, and the grammar of sacred images.

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