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The "some WW2 patches glow" challenge!


jgawne
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I'm tired of this constantly coming back around. Someone prove to me beyond a shadow of a doubt that 'some' WW2 era patches glow. It's just not true.

 

I'm really tired of hearing this myth constantly pop up spread by dealers who use it as an excuse. A lot of the patches seen in WW2 continued on in use after the war into the periods when material would glow. Many of them were made by companies not for sale to the army, but to Army Navy stores to sell on their patch wall, or in their big box o patches. Every single piece of historic and scientific evidence that people have found shows WW2 era patches to not glow. period. end of story.

 

Unless you have 100% for-sure proof - stop repeating this. In fact if you really think you can prove it (beyond possible a minute handful of experimental non production examples which someone may have made) then write it up. This includes ONLY US style, machine production, pre-end of the war items.

 

A near instant win if you can provide the records which show that patches were made from materials that scientifically have the ability to fluoresce before VJ day.

 

Keep in mind that the material and dyestuff we know used during the war period have no scientific ability to glow on its own, so as this is an extraordinary claim, you will have to provide extraordinary evidence. This means if you are making the claim based upon an example of something, it had better have an airtight provenance that no one can poke any holes in.

 

"I got it from a vet" does not count unless you can somehow prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the chain of custody (i.e. evidence) is without flaw. "This patch was only used in WW2" does not count as pretty much every single WW2 patch was produced after the war for the non-military market.

 

write it up - send it to me or point out to me where it is available. I will evaluate the evidence fairly, and ask some respected collectors, historians and scientists to also evaluate it so it is not just my opinion. If you can do this I will:

 

1. Publically state I was wrong and apologize to everyone.

2. Send you $20

3. Have your material published to give you credit.

4. Make every attempt to have the hobby refer to this 'now proven fact' as "the (your name) principle."

5. Send you a signed copy of one of my books pointing out you were the guy that figured it out.

 

I just want to put this to bed. If someone can prove it, great! Then we know for sure. I just want all the people saying this, which goes against conventional wisdom, to put their money where their mouth it. If someone has the evidence bring it forth. If I am wrong I am wrong, but you have to prove your case.

 

 

As to the glowing from washing, it is the whitening agents in the detergent that will glow somewhat, but as I have confirmed with one of the top textile conservationists in the country (Kathy Francis- hired by people like the Smithsonian and other top museums), the glow fades with time after washing. Re-rinsing it in clean water will further degrade the glow. Of course, how often do you wash wool in water and detergent?

 

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I have a white and red 31st ID patch that glows (not as bright as a known modern rerpoduction patch I own) but passed the burn test with flying colors, has cut edge/khaki base, white back with v type stitching, is very soft/supple and has thread remnants from having been sewn on a uniform. I am willing to venture it is WW2 era patch despite the glow.

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But can you prove it? Could it not be a patch made in a style similar to WW2 manufacture, however with a different type of dye stuff that does fluoresce that was produced after the war? The burn test only means it is not a true plastic based synthetic. And there is no provenance to back up claims it comes from the wartime period.

 

and people, this is NOT me saying I am right and everyone else is wrong, this is me saying that convention wisdom, and a lot of research, says one thing. It is now up to you to prove it wrong. I am more than happy to accept it as truth if it can be PROVEN!

 

This is one reason "real" historians look down upon collectors. Collectors are seen as just accepting things they are told, which are not necessarily the truth, or ever had been researched.

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No scientific proof, just going with deductive reasoning based on the totality of the circumstances.

 

Unless the patch was removed from an unmolested WW2 uniform, I'm not sure anyone can know for sure.

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Patchcollector

I'm not knowledgeable enough on this particular subject to add anything to it,but I do want to say that I agree wholeheartedly with you that if a person posts something on this forum,they should be prepared to back up their statements with facts. ;)

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OK, let me post this and confirm ONCE AND FOR ALL that you can have a US made WWII patch glow from detergents with phosphates that WILL NOT fade. I have posted this photo before and I will continue to post it to prove that you CANNOT categorically dismiss a glowing WWII original patch.

 

I washed the 6th Service Command patch back in 1981 as a kid. I took this photo about 3 years ago and you will see that YES, it still glows like a wildfire, confirming my long-standing conviction that you CANNOT determine 100% that a patch is a repro by using a black light alone. I don't want your money.

 

-Ski

post-3043-0-53875700-1369927648.jpg

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OK, let me post this and confirm ONCE AND FOR ALL that you can have a US made WWII patch glow from detergents with phosphates that WILL NOT fade. I have posted this photo before and I will continue to post it to prove that you CANNOT categorically dismiss a glowing WWII original patch.

 

I washed the 6th Service Command patch back in 1981 as a kid. I took this photo about 3 years ago and you will see that YES, it still glows like a wildfire, confirming my long-standing conviction that you CANNOT determine 100% that a patch is a repro by using a black light alone. I don't want your money.

 

-Ski

 

Ski:

 

How do you know the patch didn't glow before you washed it?

 

Dave

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Ski:

 

How do you know the patch didn't glow before you washed it?

 

Dave

 

 

I don't. The fact that the blue glows with the white shows that the detergent caused the patch to glow, not the fibers (blue doesn't glow). I also have other patches I washed at the same time that glow as well, including a 1st Service Command patch.....

 

-Ski

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Plus, Service Command patches were only made during the WW2 era and is there REALLY a demand for repros????

 

I should also mention that the 31st ID patch I referenced earlier in this thread only glows with respect to the white portion (and not nearly as bright as Ski's example), yet it DID pass the burn test. Any ideas?

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I'm with ski on this. It "should" be relatively easy to prove. Take a very common WWII patch that does not glow and wash it with detergent, then see if it glows. Not sure which brands/types would work, but I'm sure we could figure it out.

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I'm with ski on this. It "should" be relatively easy to prove. Take a very common WWII patch that does not glow and wash it with detergent, then see if it glows. Not sure which brands/types would work, but I'm sure we could figure it out.

 

 

That's the problem. From what has been brought up on the forum, current detergents don't contain phosphates.

 

As far as the 31st, it is important to compare it to other WWII era patches to make sure that the white is really glowing.

 

-Ski

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I don't. The fact that the blue glows with the white shows that the detergent caused the patch to glow, not the fibers (blue doesn't glow). I also have other patches I washed at the same time that glow as well, including a 1st Service Command patch.....

 

-Ski

 

I don't particularly want to weigh in on one side or the other as even though I've owned literally thousands of WW2-type patches, I rarely ever blacklit them, so I don't have the background or experience to make declaratory statements. With that said, I applaud Jon's attempt at quelling a long-standing myth via an academically-sound, scholarly argument.

 

Here's the deal...even though you washed this patch in 1981, it is unfortunately not exactly relevant to the topic at hand. What Jon is looking for is a patch that glows that has a verifiable chain of custody starting prior to August 1945 to the present day. This patch, while it is an example of a WW2-type patch (I use the word "type" because there's no chain of custody that can document it was made prior to August 1945) could have come from any number of sources producing patches of that "type" all the way up through the 1960s (and in some cases, even beyond). Thus my question if it glowed prior to washing it...the chances are slim that it did, however, without having any documentation to prove otherwise, the claim that WW2 patches can glow cannot be made with this example.

 

What we need to find (and I'm certain it should be readily obtainable) is a patch that can be verified as being used prior to August 1945. But here's the tough part: and that patch glows. What is one potential shortcoming is if someone washed the uniform (or patch) and that washing was unrecorded...thus the remaining phosphates would cause it to glow. Or would they? But in order to make the case that pre-August 1945 patches did glow, the chain of custody and history has to exist. So let's start digging them out and see what we can find!

 

Dave

 

P.S. Ski, that is a super cool photo, BTW... :)

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Plus, Service Command patches were only made during the WW2 era and is there REALLY a demand for repros????

 

I should also mention that the 31st ID patch I referenced earlier in this thread only glows with respect to the white portion (and not nearly as bright as Ski's example), yet it DID pass the burn test. Any ideas?

 

Not so much a reproduction, but manufactured all the way up into the early 1970s. Even after the commands were long disbanded, stocks of patches remained on hand for veterans (active duty and otherwise) of these organizations to purchase. Thus, even though a patch might be cut edge and appear WW2 "type", it may have been actually manufactured long after August 1945 and may possibly glow using the materials that came into use 20+ after the end of WW2.

 

Dave

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I think another good candidate would be pre-August 1945 dated and sealed boxes of patches...those would be interesting to investigate to see if any of them glow. Having them in an original, sealed, box would make for a valid sample to prove the theory that WW2 can glow. Of course, I don't have any, but maybe someone else does? :)

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Were Service Command patches really manufactured into the early 70s??? Why would they need that many?

 

I don't know if they were or not...but do you have proof that they weren't? I know that sounds almost silly, but in trying to keep this along the lines of scholarly research, if the question is impossible to answer, one cannot make assumptions one way or the other and the fact that they certainly COULD have been severely reduces the integrity of the sample.

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I don't know if they were or not...but do you have proof that they weren't? I know that sounds almost silly, but in trying to keep this along the lines of scholarly research, if the question is impossible to answer, one cannot make assumptions one way or the other and the fact that they certainly COULD have been severely reduces the integrity of the sample.

 

 

You have to apply common sense here. You can be certain that WWII Service Commands that were deactivated in 1946 did not have patches made for them after the war. I have seen literally hundreds of boxed patches at work and there were no WWII only patches to be seen made after the end of the war. Patches we see made after WWII were strictly for units that were active after the war or for collectors. These can often be mistaken for their WWII counterparts.

 

Do I think that there were any WWII US made patches that glowed? I haven't seen one and I am heavily leaning towards this not being the case. As US patches were made with rayon on cotton twill, they won't glow. Now as I mentioned above, I will not, ever, say that WWII patches don't glow based on the wash premise. Academic evaluations are not always a 100% proposition. Ask any anthropologist or archeologist and they will tell you this. We cannot scientifically prove that all patches from WWII made in the US did not glow. No, unless you have a box of every patch made available for inspection and that is impossible. We can only evaluate the data we have available. That includes many years of collecting experience and empirical evidence along with sketchy contemporary accounts (Patch King article comes to mind).

 

-Ski

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Why were they manufactured- 2 reasons

 

1. for some units they kept making them for sale to people who wore them as combat patches (and yes I know service command would not be).

 

2. There has been a market for patches for collectors from before WW2. It exploded in WW2. Not everyone could get a hold of every patch from a friend or a PX (especially civilian collectors ) and if you read period publications you'll see the Army actually stopped men putting patch exchange ads in army publications as it was becoming a problem.

 

So, you have from the war on out until even today places that would sell you 'any' patch you wanted. I can recall most decent army navy stores had walls of every patch they offered stapled to them. You pointed out what you wanted and they took them out of the little boxes. Now if for some reason they did not have the specific patch, they could order them up from companies that made them. As war stocks dwindled of some these companies of course kept having to make new batches to keep everything in stock. As I recall it was in the 1980's when most real Army Navy stores went of business, or started to shrink, and they'd just take what patches they had left and toss them in a box or fishtank - .25 each or something.

 

This post war manufacture of patches is where I believe that 99.9% of all those 'real' ghost army patches came from. People see them in publications, or embroidery companies see the specs, so they make them up when the looms are not occupied. Specifically for sale to the civilian collectors market (which also includes military and ex military guys that collected them).

 

To me it is funny that when patches were cheap, no one thought wartime ones glowed. That statement only started up a short while ago when they started costing more than a buck for an average patch.

 

And just for the record, I just really want to find out the facts. I started using blacklights on patches in the 70's as my mom taught textile technology and understood all that stuff very well. That brightening agents fade over time comes from a top national textile conservationist Kathy Francis, who has studied this kind of thing for a very long time (and the Smithsonian all kinds of museum trust her with priceless items). I will see if I can get back in touch and get a specific reference.

 

Half of this question is history- exactly what was used to make patches, and the other half is science- what makes something glow.

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Oh, and please- I AM NOT trying to stir up a fight, I really want to know. It's like an X-prize for collectors. For all I know someone on the west coast has a smoking gun document that indicates materials were used that will glow- but if so, I don't know- and I won't know unless I ask.

 

So please, keep this civil- if this method of 'crowd-sourcing' proves useful I will issue more challenges to try and answer some of the great militaria questions of the ages !

 

However, I will repeat this. From what we know (Ok, 'I") know, the raw materials used in the war should not glow. Unless evidence to the contrary appears, the burden of proof is on those that claim WW2 patches were made that glow.

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The glow issue is really an urban myth. I have a lot of repros I bought as a kid back in the 1980's complete with synthetic return threads that don't glow. The black light is WAY overrated and I know this from experience. I have talked to a lot of people swearing that a certain patch is original because it doesn't glow. I then have to point out the fish string on the reverse and explain that it doesn't glow.

 

Other patches that use silk glow and those end up being labeled as repros even though they are 100% theater made patches. I really think we should dump the whole black light thing altogether as it is more of a hinderance than an aid to the beginning collector who are the ones that feel they need them. Just my personal opinion, but a strong one.

 

-Ski

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Again, I agree the black light is way over rated as a tool. It can be useful in some situations, but should never be the only tool folks use. My issue with black lights come from those who don't know how to use them (and lable any light reflection as "glow") an those who use them as their sole tool and judge of authenticity.

 

Lack of glow does not mean its pre VJ Day made. Not like the textile industry changed its dye and materials in 1946.

 

As for the original question, I think it too broad. Are you asking if a "new old stock", unused, US made patch from WWII will glow, I'd say without a doubt no. If you include used, worn, and laundered insignia, then all bets are off.

 

I still think the phospahtes in detergent thing is testable under scientific like conditions. Phosphates don't seem to be banned in all states, and if you can get ahold of Mexican made detergent (such as Mexican Ariel brand) it will still have phosphates.

 

Always an interesting topic of discussion.

 

-Vance

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Okay, if we ditch the black light test, what indicia do we use to come to a conclusion that a patch is WW2 era? Burn test. cut edge, etc?

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Okay, if we ditch the black light test, what indicia do we use to come to a conclusion that a patch is WW2 era? Burn test. cut edge, etc?

 

 

Well, I can tell you it isn't going to be just one single indicator. The only way to be sure is to inspect other original patches until you have a good feel for what is original and what isn't.

 

-Ski

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