An example of what is sometimes known as a “Biscailuz badge” has been listed on EBay. These are presentation badges that weren’t intended for deputies, but were only given to celebrities and other notables by Los Angeles County Sheriff Eugene Biscailuz. This one is inscribed to H.S. Grove.
According to the website badgehistory.com Nelson Eddy had one of these badges and all of them apparently had a serial number ending in “A.”
Biscailuz was quite generous with badges and gave them to reporters and photographers in lieu of press passes. When Peter Pitchess became sheriff, he sent deputies to reclaim (almost) all of them. The late Chuck Hillinger of The Times told me that he still had his (he was probably on the road when the officers came for it).
The LAPD was also generous with celebrity badges in the 1930s and solved the problem by adopting the current shield design in the 1940s as part of the reforms under Chief Arthur Hohmann.
