This is a nice pair of gold bullion embroidered “flaming bomb” or “flaming shell” insignia on a trimmed red background in excellent condition. The ball is made of tightly coiled bullion that is formed into a short neck at top, from which seven leaflike flames emerge. The insignia still have the manufacturer’s thin paper backing that shows small holes on the reverse indicating they were actually sewn to a uniform at some point.

This pattern derives from early the eighteenth century “flaming grenade” insignia used by grenadiers, elite troops tasked with the dangerous job of throwing hand grenades. In the U.S. army it was adopted by the Ordnance Department in 1832, but overlapping use continued by the regular army at least until 1851 and by militia groups as a generic ornament military ornament on the tails of uniform coats, etc., for quite some time even after the Civil War. This is a nice pair “of the period,” impossible to date more precisely, but certainly nineteenth century.  [sr]

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