DR 6
The badges of the cavalry regiments are particularly beautiful and expensive. Many of them are beautifully enameled. The shape of the badges was often similar. This is especially striking in the dragoon regiments. The standing oval shape with the imperial crown on top is very common.
That is why it is difficult to distinguish the cap badges seen in the group photos from each other. These full-body photos taken from a little further away could not capture the inscription of the cap badges, especially the motif on it. You can roughly guess what we are seeing based on the shape of the badge. However, since there are a number standing oval, crowned badges, it is difficult to choose.
The oval shapes are of course not completely identical. There are longer and fatter versions. This is an important and quite easily recognizable criterion. The next characteristic, also related to the shape of the badge, is whether there is any protruding plate on the oval (on which the regiment number or perhaps the year was usually engraved)? And of course, the decisive factor would be the badge inscription itself, the central field, but due to the enameling, it is almost always distorted by reflection.
In this Fortepan picture, I see the 6th Dragoon regiment badge as a possibility, but the 7th is also a strong candidate. The fact that the badge image seems to have a pattern of the L monogram seen on it speaks in favor of the 7th. At the same time, the crown of the 7th regiment’s badge is a little wider than what we see in the picture, and the shield below also seems to have a different shape. It is like that of the 6th Dragoons badge.
Sometimes the puzzle is blurred even further as some artillery regiments also had oval badges similar to this. The 6th Field Howitzer Regiment, for example, could be considered. But the oval there has a different shape, so it can be ruled out.
