It's in the blood

I don't buy all these insert badges due to the low quality but I do have a few in my collection.  These four claim the Crewe Alexandra is in our blood!

Eat..Sleep..Crewe Alexandra

 

Trio of insert badges suggesting that there are only 3 key things you should be doing to live your life...

Crewe v Sheffield United 2014/15 FA Cup 1st Round Badges

Thin, pressed metal badge for the FA Cup first round game against the Blades.  Very nice design produced in multiple colourways.  Like all these recent cup badges, its from abroad - Germany I think for this one.

 

And this one is from the Ukraine in similar design to previous cup badges

1877 insert badges

Set of four on ebay featuring either "Crewe Alexandra" or "The Railwaymen" with the phrase "Pride of Cheshire since 1877".

CAFC button pin

Fun little CAFC button badge from the seller 'MadAboutFlags'

Crewe v Bolton 2014/15 Capital One League Cup Rd 2 match badge

Nice large (about 2'' across) resin style badge from an ebay seller 'daveinbrum'.  Interestingly the fastening on the back is a very long broach type rather than the butterfly pin type on most badges nowadays.

Gresty Road End insert badges

 

 

Two of the insert type badges found on ebay that reference the Gresty Road end.

 

Crewe v Bradford Match Badges 2014/15

One of the 12 colourways produced for the Crewe v Bradford games in 2014/15 and the first Crewe set of the three produced for 14/15 that I have already featured on the blog.  The photo below is the one the seller ("Danny from St Neots") sent me to show me the full set of 12.

Triple logo badge

Another new official badge, this one seems to be of lower quality than those usually produced by the club. Fairly small in size, it features a bigger (approx. 1cm) logo flanked by two smaller ones.

Crewe v Oldham match badges 2014/15

The second of the three Crewe match badge sets produced by the same seller during the 2014/15 was the set of 12 colourways for the games against Oldham.  Once again I only collected four of the varieties due to the excessive cost.

Crewe v Sheffield United Button Badge - FA Cup 1st Round 2014/15

Small size button badge from the FA Cup 1st round game against Sheffield United.

Raised logo badge

Nice new official release from the club - slightly larger than normal size for these logo badges and also features very nice raised lettering.

2014/15 Resin Kit Badges

Picked up off ebay, these kit badges in both home and away colours are the sticky resin type and clearly feature the Mornflake detail but do not show the club logo detail at all.  Still nice to fill the kit badge gap when no official ones are produced by the club.

Doncaster v Crewe 2007/08 insert badge

I thought I had captured most of these in previous posts but here is another one I picked up a few weeks ago.  Its from the 2007-08 season for the game at Doncaster Rovers.

Crewe v Preston Match Badges 2014/15

So these are four varieties (of the Twelve available) of the Crewe v Preston 2014/15 match badges that came from a seller named "Danny in St Neots".  This was the third Crewe game in the 2014/15 season that this style of badge was made for (Oldham & Bradford being the others).  Quite frankly these were the straw that broke the camels back regarding collecting every colourway as a)12 varieties is ridiculous and b) at £5 a pop, it is ridiculously expensive for one badge release.  Four or even six varieties would have been OK...  I collected the four in this set that most resemble Crewe colours, 

The other bizarre thing about this seller and these badges was that he claimed they were being made for foreign collectors and that I would have to buy quick to guarantee getting them...  amazingly they are still available on ebay :)  Not sure who or why there would be 'foreign collectors' of these either.

Regarding the badges themselves, they are actually really nice (if a little unoriginal) with good quality manufacture and design. The badges include the dates of the two games, both club logos and the league one trophy.

'Sky Bet' League One 2014/15 badge

Coming from a seller in Germany, these large (and pricey at £15) map badges appeared on ebay mid way through the 14/15 season and were available in 6 colours.  These badges feature the logos of all the teams in league one and supercede an earlier version of this badge that had the wrong league sponsor! The price tag (especially if you wanted all colours) started some serious debate on a badge forum I am on about no longer being able to collect all badges because of the high prices and multiple colourways.

JPT picture badge

Another badge emerging from our friends in the Ukraine...  from its ebay picture it looks like its one of the thin pressed badges with some kind of insert of a low quality photo of the 2013 JPT winning team.  Not sure of the size but it looks like it may be a little larger that the match badges coming from the same seller.

NI v QATAR friendly badge from Gresty Road

There was a nice set of two badges produced for the Northern Ireland v Qatar friendly held at Gresty Road in May 2015.  The one shown here is the green version and there was a red version too.  A sell out on the day!