I never had one of these, are they rare?, can anyone give a ballpark amount on what it's worth?

Bump^

There is a very good copy of this printed straight airborne title made by Pegasus Militaria but your piece is genuine.  You can tell by the shape of the "O" which is oval while the copy is more round and the thickness of the left leg on the "A" is correct while the copy is slimmer.   Regarding value my guess is around 50 to 75 dollars as they still come up for sale on eBay.  As you know they were worn under the Pegasus SSI by all units to including Air Landing and Airborne.  There is actually no rule to who wore it and who didn't. There are plenty of pictures out there showing soldiers from the same unit, parachute or glider borne, both wearing it and not wearing it.  You sometimes see troops with both Airborne title and Airborne strip, though the strip was intended only for wear by non parachute or glider troops.

 

They were approved in October of 1942 and then ceased to be issued in December of 1944 as being redundant due to the airborne wings and Pegasus SSI being renown for airborne.  They were still being worn at the end of the war as the stipulation was that it would no longer be worn after remaining stocks were exhausted.   So it only existed officially for just over two years.  

I was in Normandy a few weeks ago and snapped a pic of some airborne stuff from the ‘Pegasus bridge ‘ museum. 
The tab is different I see. 🤷‍♂️maybe glider pilot tab, I can’t remember now. But interesting

 

…..and here is another taken at the museum, looks like your one.
 so looks as tho there was a couple different types. Interesting🤔🧐