Vintage 1960s-1970s Mississippi Highway Patrol Tin Litho Toy Police Badge 🚔 NOS on Special Police Card Made in Japan

Size: 4 x 2.25 inches ~ New Old Stock, still on its card. They vary a little one to the next.

🚔 Mississippi Highway Patrol, Pressed in Tin

This is a little tin litho pinback button, still riding its yellow dime-store card and still sealed under its sleeve. A red banner across the top of the card reads SPECIAL POLICE BADGE, and off to the right sits the button itself: a navy shield outlined in red, MISSISSIPPI across the top and HIGHWAY PATROL underneath it in gold, a gold eagle at the center holding branches in its talons over a striped red-white-and-blue shield with stars, and VIRTUTE ET ARMIS curving along the bottom. It's a toy, made for a kid's shirt pocket, not a trooper's - and it's a good one. And they're rare - carded or loose, a Mississippi Highway Patrol one just doesn't come up for sale.

🏍️ The Card Tells Its Own Story

Look at the card first, because it earns the look. A cartoon motorcycle officer fills the left side in a white peaked cap and big motorcycle goggles, gloved hands on the handlebars, a city skyline washed in behind him. Down in the corner it just says JAPAN, small and plain.

🦅 What the Badge Says

The button itself is round, with a bright yellow band and a red rim around that navy shield. MISSISSIPPI HIGHWAY PATROL is lettered in gold across it, and in the middle stands the gold eagle, wings out, a red-white-and-blue striped shield with stars across its breast, branches held in its talons. VIRTUTE ET ARMIS runs along the bottom edge - Latin for "By valor and arms." That's not a phrase somebody dreamed up for a toy. It's Mississippi's own state motto, and the eagle-and-shield design echoes the state's own coat of arms.

🏛️ Where the Motto Comes From

Mississippi adopted its coat of arms on February 7, 1894 - a gold eagle on a blue shield, a palm branch and a bundle of arrows, cotton stalks, and VIRTUTE ET ARMIS on a red scroll underneath. The motto may have been suggested by the motto of Lord Gray de Wilton. The law establishing the coat of arms got left out of the state's 1906 code, and it took a state supreme court ruling in May 2000 - finding Mississippi had no official coat of arms on the books - before Governor Ronnie Musgrove re-designated it, on that same date, February 7, 2001. The eagle and the motto on this little badge are older than the patrol that wears them.

🚓 The Real Patrol Behind the Name

The Mississippi Highway Patrol itself started in 1938. Senate Bill 161 signed it into law on April 1 of that year, setting up the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol to enforce traffic laws on the state and federal highways, and its first troopers rode out on motorcycles. Governor Hugh L. White signed the bill; Major Thomas Butler Birdsong was the first commissioner and Captain Webb Burke the first chief of patrol. Fifty-three troopers came out of the training camp at Camp Shelby, paraded to Jackson and down Capitol Street past the governor, and were sworn in on June 16, 1938; the following Monday they reported to their stations. The original 1938 patch was oval, almost round, with HIGHWAY SAFETY PATROL in gold around the top, the state seal in the center, and VIRTUTE ET ARMIS in a red scroll around the bottom - the same motto, still doing its job decades later on a dime-store toy.

🗓️ When These Were Made

Nothing on this card carries a date, but the family it belongs to gives it away. The same yellow card was printed with a New York button copying the NYPD patch adopted July 1, 1971, and a San Francisco button copying the patch the SFPD added around 1970 - so this whole run of cards was on the racks in the 1970s.

🎖️ Kids and Badges

Badges like this one had real company. Sheriffs handed out tin badges just like it as prizes in their youth programs. And from the 1920s on, police departments backed school safety patrols, putting real belts and real badges on real schoolchildren long before this toy ever left a factory. This little Mississippi badge was made for that same world - a kid's badge, worn with a kid's pride.