User talk:Satchmo Sings
March 2010
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US Army rank insignia
[edit]The seemingly strange precedence of silver outranking gold has to do with a question of cost savings and prior-issued uniform insignia dating back to 1851. The U.S. military is somewhat unique in this area. Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 22:50, 29 April 2013 (UTC)
- Interestingly the same error appeared in the article "United States Army officer rank insignia" where I also made the same correction.
- Indeed, in October of 2006, "Gadget850" made the same point about the metals used to distinguish rank:
- "The 'gold' rank is not actually gold for the grades of 2LT and MAJ. The color is actually bronze and the reason it is considered inferior to silver is the bronze rank required polishing to keep from tarnishing while the silver ranks did not. This is what is currently being taught in the Officer Candidate School at Ft. Benning.
- "That conflicts with the explanation from the Institue of Heraldry [1]]. If the original insignia was embroidered on the epaulettes, then silver and gold are colors, not metals. --Gadget850 ( Ed) 12:05, 7 October 2006 (UTC)"
- Just in case there is any confusion here, the color and appearance of U.S. Army rank insignia are intended to appear as actual silver and actual gold (i.e., not bronze). Of course, no real gold or silver is used in the making of the metal insignia, it's all just polished zinc (silver-like) and brass (gold-like) alloys. Back when majors wore oak leaves on their shoulder straps in the 1800's, it was just gold-colored embroidered thread. You can read more about the history of using silver and gold to differentiate the ranks, and the reason why silver outranks gold in the U.S. Army (a matter of cost savings back in 1851) at the Army's Institute of Heraldry website, seen here. Regards, AzureCitizen (talk) 03:53, 1 May 2013 (UTC)