SAN JOSE — When the Santa Clara County coroner’s office split off from the Sheriff’s Office late last year, its employees were suddenly without one piece of equipment that was important to them: badges.

But the sterling silver and gold-filled emblems the office picked and purchased have raised a few eyebrows: They’re three to seven times the cost of those worn by their counterparts in San Mateo County and by most law-enforcement officers.

The coroner bought 13 sterling silver badges for investigators at $355 each and one $675 gold model for the chief examiner. A standard brass or chrome-plated badge carries a price tag of about $100 or less.

“The last time we paid for a badge it was $87,” said Robert Foucrault, the San Mateo County coroner. “They’re gold-colored but not gold-filled or gold-plated silver — as budget conscious as I am, I would never entertain expending that kind of money.”

But the head of the Santa Clara County medical examiner’s office — who has the one gold badge — defended the purchases, saying they are more cost-effective in the long run because they’ll last longer.

“Law enforcement agencies already have a die-cast made, so it’s very easy for them to order badges,” said Chief Medical Examiner Michelle Jorden. “There wasn’t such a cast that we could use — we had to create a new badge.”

The medical examiner and her staff are not required to have badges because they aren’t law enforcement officers, but Jorden said badges can be a quick way to identify employees at the scene of a crime.

Jon Coupal of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association, a tax policy and spending watchdog group based in Los Angeles and Sacramento, disagreed, referencing “The Treasure of the Sierra Madre” to make his point.

“I’m going to channel an old Western here and say, ‘They don’t need no stinkin’ badges,’” he said. “What’s wrong with a business card? Last time I checked a corpse normally doesn’t need to be arrested.”

Santa Clara County, which oversees the coroner’s office, stayed firmly in the middle on the expenditure.

“It is my understanding that Dr. Jorden explored badge options,” Deputy County Executive Martha Wapenski said in a statement to this newspaper. “She followed the county’s procurement process and made the decision.”

The issue surfaced after the medical examiner’s office split from the sheriff’s department and the sheriff took back the badges she had issued to the team. After looking into the cost of creating a new die to create entirely new badges — about $4,000 — Jorden said they opted to have customized badges crafted from high-quality metals that will last longer than standard brass and plated versions.

“These badges aren’t something an investigator takes with them when they leave. They stay in the office to be used by the next investigator,” she said. “And it needs to be sturdy enough in case we are responding to a mass fatality, an aircraft disaster, something like that. We had to create a badge that could be worn by an investigator in rain, shine or any type of mass fatality.”

According to invoices, chrome badges would have been about $105 a piece, but Jorden said those badges have a “shelf life of 5 years,” while the upper-echelon models will last for two or three decades.

“We’re actually saving money over time,” Jorden said. “A lot of thought and consideration went into purchasing the badges, and I think in the end we received a high-quality, long-lasting badge.”

Badge companies agree that precious metals last longer. Silver, for example, can simply be polished while a plated material will need to be stripped and recoated after normal wear and tear. One Bay Area-based badge maker, who asked not to be named because the business is a repository for police credentials, said a badge made of higher-quality metals is one “I’ll never see again,” meaning she won’t need to restore it.

But one East Coast manufacturer, who also did not want to be identified, said Jorden’s long-term cost-savings rationale “isn’t what most would use” when purchasing badges, adding that lower-end emblems can last much longer than five years depending on how concerned the bearer is about its aesthetics.

And still others said it’s unusual to outfit an entire department with high-end gear that’s usually reserved for upper ranks.

“Certainly you wouldn’t see a large department quantifying that for each of their hundreds or thousands of officers,” said Sharon Dunn, marketing manager at Massachusetts-based V.H. Blackinton Co., the nation’s largest supplier of badges. “We do see higher end business, but 90 percent of what we do are more of the gold-plate or rhodium” — which can run about $75 per badge.

Ultimately, the matter comes down to an agency’s individual sensibilities. Brian Peterson, medical examiner of Milwaukee County, Wisconsin, and president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, sports a badge but said he has worked in jurisdictions — including several in Northern California — where he got by just fine with an ID card.

“Badging is highly variable in our field,” Peterson said in an email. “I guess the main use would be identification at a scene, and for the most part, I and my office staff are well-known and there is no need.”

In most police agencies throughout California, officers and deputies are issued badges when they join. As they get promoted, they must purchase their previous badges from the agency if they want to have them as a keepsake. And the cost of any upgrades beyond standard-issue metals also comes out of their own pockets.

Foucrault, the San Mateo coroner, said he’d heard of officers buying high-end badge bling on their own: “That’s one thing, but if that’s not the case, then it’s a waste of taxpayer money.”

“You come here with a $700 badge and I’ll show you my $87 badge,” he said, “and you tell me what the difference is.”