Patch King Catalogue

[R. Watkins]

Hoping someone here can help me out with this.

 

Did the original 1948 Patch King catalogue listings include squadron & group insignia?

 

Thanks.

Bob

[infinitig35]

Hoping someone here can help me out with this.

 

Did the original 1948 Patch King catalogue listings include squadron & group insignia?

 

Thanks.

Bob

Bob,

 

The Patch King "Insignias of the Armed Forces United States and Foreign":

 

 

catalog published around 1946 or later I believe was adapted from a similar but larger version published and distributed Wolf-Appleton, Broadway in New York City in 1945. The Wolf-Appleton was a standard for its day and I recall getting a well used and marked up copy from a Army-Navy store in Buffalo, New York. To answer your question, neither catalog contained squadron or group patches used by the USAAF. Two good references from that time period covering those subjects were the issues of the National Geographic Magazine (june 1943) and later a compilation done for the Armed Forces (first in late 1943 and later in 1944 as a revised edition with new content) and Carl Mann's work entitled "Air Heraldry" that was hard bound and contained monochrome images that I believe were made from the original colored drawings prepared by Arthur E. DuBois of the Quartermaster General's office. I was fortunate to have owned a small collection of this original artwork.

 

A young collector who lived in New York City by the name of Richard Marco had a photograph of himself and his collection appear in the August 1945 issue of Life Magazine. If you look carefully at his collection, he had a small but interesting assortment of USAAF squadron and group patches, these appear to be embroidered examples. The Patch King later connected with Mr. Marco and published an article that appeared in Collier's magazine about 1943 or 1944.

 

I read that Mr. Marco never purchased any of the patches in his collection but solicited donations from service members even keeping a small pocket knife on his person should a person wish to part with a patch he was wearing when Mr. Marco met him. Since most squadron patches were worn on flight jackets he probably had few opportunities to obtain them from flight crew members and that may explain why he had so few in his collection. These patches were more colorful and interesting in their design compared to the more common shoulder patches and would have been very desirable for any collection.

 

The Patch King sold USAAF squadron and group patches and listed them in his price sheets, these were of two types, one printed on a fiberboard or rubber like material that I believe were sold to collectors and family members and the other were machine loom embroidered, many times on felt or twill fabrics. I don't recall that he sold any of the type often used by units that were made of leather, either appliqued cut out designs or the hand painted and sometimes screen printed ones that were made overseas in England, France and Italy.

 

Tom