This is a superbly designed high quality and exceedingly rare badge used by the few members of what they claimed to be the oldest incorporated hunting club in America founded 1903. The badge is 1.25" dia. featuring high relief frontal view in brass of a bustard, the world's heaviest flying bird which was hunted to extinction in the United Kingdom in 1832. Recently in 2004 the Great Bustard Consortium was founded to reintroduce the bird in the UK. Also Arab sheikhs are obsessed with the bustard, a gawky bird looking like a cross between a roadrunner and a pheasant as it is a primary target for the sheikhs' falcons. Above the high relief die-cut image of the bird on this piece is the text "The Royal Bustards." Beneath the bird is a small area with a numeral 9 above what seems to be a goblet. Beneath this are a pair of tiny arrows pointing at the words "Wm. W. Tell Club." Symbolically above the bustard's head is a tiny high relief image of an apple. The back of the piece has a vertical pin and stamp of maker "The Wallace Co. Inc Prov. R.I." The William Tell Club was a private hunting and social club on Spencer Pond near Maine's Moosehead Lake. Incorporated as a social club in 1903 by ten men, eight from Maine, one from NY, and one from Rhode Island. It claimed to be the oldest incorporated hunting club in the country. The first volume of the club records by the secretary describe it as "This club was originally intended as a home for the over-worked toiler but it has now come to be a retreat for good fellows...it is an ideal spot to rest and is beautiful beyond compare." The membership fee was $100 and annual dues were $10. The club grew through the years reaching a peak of 40 members in the 1930s. WWII made it difficult to maintain the property and the last trip was made in 1941. After the War the few remaining members were unable to generate sufficient interest to revive the club and it was dissolved with the buildings torn down in 1950. This piece dates from the 1930s or possibly even earlier. It has NM luster. Almost certainly one of fewer than 40 made. Perhaps the numeral "9" designates the membership number of the person who once owned this badge. Morry Greener Collection.