Old police badge - help with age and help with identity of owner please.

Do you have any understanding of the first part "This purse allan" ?

 

Maybe she was referring to a large(ish) "snap-to-close coin purse" that men a long time ago kept/carried in a pocket.

She could have meant to write "This purse, Allan, was your . . . .

 

Kentworld, what is the approximate size of the badge?

 

Here is some history on Lynn Mass badges and pics, I didn't go through the site yet.

http://www.lynnpolice.org/deparment_history.htm

 

My grandfather(who died in 1986 at 87 years old) always called his wallet his "pocketbook" ! We never could figure out why,but now I think Yourturn's explanation filled in that blank.

 

Reading the letter it would seem Allen's father was senile but was sufficiently interested by the badge to summon up a few coherent words about it. Note,"looked at your father's face and it told me" and also "even saying", which makes it sadder that 'clearing out stuff has to start with something so small, yet significant to the family.

 

Book, I looked
some more but cannot find your exact badge? The site I posted had only similar shape but more ornate. I will keep on lookin'

 

Would think late 19th century or early 20th by the style. The note could have been written by the mother to her son, Allan, after his father (her husband) died. She wanted to throw it away but it was his fathers and she could not do it after seeing his reaction. Depending on the relationship of the seller to Allan, the owner who sold it could very well be the great grandson of the original owner.

 

And I know nothing about stamps

I do. Start a thread with a scan of one or two pages and I can pretty well predict if you have anything worthwhile.

The reason for this is that stamps tend to be accumulated or collected, so collections are what I call philatelist collections, where the albums will be neatly presented, in good order and condition,and what I call schoolboy accumulations where the goal seems to be to get as many stamps as possible. Old schoolboy collections can have valuable stuff amidst the vast numbers of common items, but they do need to be old, pre 1950 certainly.
Philatelic collections are fairly easy to value by looking for certain key stamps to determine if any serious money went into the collection.

You tend to buy schoolboy accumulations by weight.

 

Lynn, Lynn the city of sin
You never come out, the way you came in

You ask for water, but they give you gin
The girls say no, yet they always give in

If you're not bad, they won’t let you in
It’s the damndest city I’ve ever lived in

Lynn, Lynn the city of sin
You never come out, the way you came in.

 

On the site that shiloh posted, there was one badge that looked exactly like yours, but it said who's collection it belonged to.

 

Now, now, Anund. I used to live there.

It's also the only place I know where Eastern and Western Avenues intersect.