Ok, here is what you are looking at, US Army Special Forces enlisted insignia (aka collar tabs). So what right?
So here is what makes these unique. They were produced sometime in the 1950s and are still on the original manufacturer card and in pretty much mint condition.
Being relatively new (US Army Special Forces began in 1952) these were produced with the belief that SF would use authorized insignia. However, that didn’t actually happen until 1984. So prior to that date if you were infantry you wore infantry insignia, if you were an engineer you wore engineer insignia, if you were a medic you wore medic insignia and so on.
Believing Special Forces would be developed as it’s own military branch these insignia were created and produced. They are the same “crossed arrows” seen on the “De oppresso liber” insignia worn on beret flashes. There were of course unassigned insignia worn in the 1960s and 1970s. But these wouldn’t become official authorized insignia until 1984.
The design itself has a history that predates the Special Forces. So these have been basically knocking around since about 1953 waiting to become official, and then thirty years later when it actually happened of course everybody bought new ones. A cool bit of SF history that probably doesn’t pop up too often.
