An officer's disk, also known as a disc, served as both an identifying marker and a coding tool within the Galactic Empire's military branch from its inception, dating back to its initial period. By 19 BBY, graduates from the first Imperial class at the military academies were already sporting these disks. These disks, shaped like a metallic stepped cone that resembled three stacked disks, held coded identification data. The most senior Imperial officers displayed code disks on their hats and belt buckles. These disks performed a role analogous to that of the code cylinders, which also formed a component of the officers' service uniform.
Following the fall of the Galactic Empire after the Battle of Endor in 4 ABY, the code disks persisted in use among the Imperial splinter groups, alongside the other elements of the Imperial uniform.
John Mollo, a costume designer, disclosed in an interview featured in issue 98 of the Star Wars Insider that the "officers' disks" were sourced from a store in Borehamwood, England, the location of Elstree Studios. These items were, in reality, surplus pulleys from the core of record players, and Mollo's costume department procured approximately five hundred of these pulleys.