Vanguard Industries
The Vanguard Industries Inc. is a supplier of military insignia and accouterments to the U.S. Army, Navy, Marine Corps, Coast Guard, Air Force, Public Health Service, NOAA, Coast Geodetic Survey, and Civil Air Patrol. Vanguard is a supplier of military insignia to the U.S. Military Exchange Services.
History
Founded in New York City in 1918 by Bernard Gershen who arrived in the US in 1903 he was tailor and found work at NY Sea Ports sewing. Working right on the piers, Bernard soon began to specialize in sewing the gold lace onto the jackets of the ship’s captain and crew. At the end of World War I, in 1918, Sam Weisberg, whose business was selling buttons to Navy personnel located at the Brooklyn Navy Yard, approached Gershen with the idea of forming their own company. Mr. Weisberg would specialize in buttons and other metal items, and Bernard would specialize in lace and other sewn items.
To pick the name of their new company, Gershen and Weisber opened the dictionary and pointed at random to the word "Vanguard".
From 1918 until the outbreak of WWII, Vanguard was a supplier of insignia and accouterments to the U.S. Navy and employed no more than ten people. With World War II looming in 1941, Vanguard responded to the dramatic increase in demand for military insignia by expanding to support all branches of the U.S. armed forces.
In 1985, Vanguard expanded to both coasts when it merged with the Wolf-Brown Corporation. Several years later another branch office opened in Kaneohe, Hawaii. In November 1996 Vanguard opened its East Coast office in Norfolk and the transition was completed in June 1997.
In July 2000, Vanguard purchased all the assets of N.S. Meyer, Inc. of New York City, which had been in operation since 1868. In 2009 Vanguard donated N.S. Meyer's vast collection of military insignia to the National Museum of the United States Army.
Insignia Hallmarks
During the World War II period through the early 1950s, Vanguard used a hallmark on the back of its insignia that consisted of a stylized eagle, shield and a V which sometimes included the name Vanguard in a scroll at the bottom. Some insignia simply had the words Vanguard and N.Y. This was replaced by the two digit code 1V around 1953-54. Around 1964-65 the hallmark changed again to V-21, then in 1974 it changed to V-21-N which is still in use today.