Antique Clinton constable badge took long way home

Thursday, May 1, 2003 3:00 AM EDT
By Stan Fisher

CLINTON — What stories it could tell, if only this century-old Clinton constable’s badge could tell them.

There’d be tales about Clinton in the late 19th century; the story about scoring big in an eBay auction and a journey of 6,000 miles; and how a retired California state cop came to send this treasure home.

The badge is a valuable bit of Clinton’s history: hand-cut in a lavish baroque shape and embellished with ornamental engraving, the old constable’s badge may be the only example in existence.

Clinton was served by constables from Colonial times, local historian Robert Bischoff says, until its first police department was created with two officers in 1939. The earliest written record of Clinton’s constables appears in an 1897 town report, which states that constables John E. Andrews and Hosmer A. Tryon each were paid $25 that year.

Bischoff says the principle job of constables was to "make sure everyone got to church and no one was loitering around the tavern," as well as keeping order at meetings.

No one in Clinton, from historians to police officers, had ever seen a Clinton constable’s badge, other than dimly glimpsed in old photographs of men who served in that duty.

But, one day last January, the Clinton badge appeared in an eBay auction, offered for sale by a Hartford area antiques dealer. The beauty and rarity of the piece attracted three bids, opening at $35 and moving to $111, on the first of the 10 days of the auction.

On the auction’s last day, the price leapt, in one bid, from $250 to $450 — making the Clinton badge the most expensive of the many police badges in eBay auctions that day.

Police Chief Joseph Faughnan, tipped to the auction by a collector friend, had been watching the proceedings. He was prepared — with his own money — to buy the artifact and donate it to the town.

"It would be wonderful to have in a glass case in the lobby of the new police station," he said.

To his considerable dismay, Faughnan’s last-minute bid didn’t work. Instead, the prize was won with a bid of $455 — entered 10 seconds before the auction’s close by Steve Nibarger, a retired sergeant from the California Highway Patrol and an authority on old police badges, who trumped Faughnan and 10 other bidders.

Over the past dozen years, Nibarger has acquired a collection of about 450 badges that represents the state police agencies of 49 states and Hawaii’s largest municipal departments, as well as any number of rare and old badges.

"I recently bought the badge worn by Edward Holmes, the son of Oliver Wendell Holmes, in 1872-73. It’s solid gold with unbelievable engraving," he says.

Nibarger has owned other badges made of solid gold, or silver and jewels, and paid $2,000 for an extremely rare badge worn by one of the 30-40 officers of the old Alaska Territory Highway Patrol.

Nibarger said he often trades or sells the expensive badges for a modest profit. "I tend not to keep them very long because I can’t afford them," he explains.

Nibarger was drawn to the Clinton badge because it "is such an incredible example of a fine, artistically crafted old badge." Its shape, he points out, is "very unique and unlike most badges, it’s so artistic that it looks almost like a painter’s palette. Most badges are stock items, from a standard die, with stamped letters. This is handcut, likely made in the 1890s, and, in that regard, very special."

While the badge was traveling 3,000 miles to Nibarger, Faughnan thought to send the collector an e-mail, explaining his interest in it and its significance in town history. After an exchange of letters, and a long telephone conversation between the two former state cops, the constable’s badge was making the 3,000 mile return trip to Connecticut.

Nibarger simply gave it to the Clinton police department. "I have a strong sense of where a badge belongs, and the history (in this badge) belongs to Clinton," he explained. "It was just the right thing to do. If I didn’t, I couldn’t live with myself."

Faughnan, rather stunned by Nibarger’s generosity, says the department has attempted to repay the kindness to a degree by sending the Californian some Clinton police items, but the enduring acknowledgement of his gift will be the display of the old badge in the lobby of the new police building.