New Additions, One Unknown

[pastfinder]

I just received these two patches in a lot with some basic patches today. The one is a nice search and rescue patch that lines up nicely with the one in Stepanov's book, page 35. The other is a mystery to me. The embroidery and construction all point to this being a legitimate Soviet patch, but for what I have no idea. The stitching is very similar to one of the UN observers patches (page 33 in the Stepanov book), but the border for those patches is blue, not red, nor are they circular. Any ideas folks?

[deValcourt]

Although I suppose it could be for just about anything, the dark blue with a red border suggests to me that it might be police/militia. It reminds me of the motorcycle helmet badges the "biker cops" wore. Just a guess though.:)

Phillip

[Nota Bene]

Could be a fake, because thye are supposed to be rare, but suddenly they are all over the Internet.

EGAPSS stands for Unified State (or National?) Aviation Search and Rescue Service

Alexei

[desantnik]

Neither of these badges, especially the left one look of Soviet manufacture to me.

[deValcourt]

Originally Posted by desantnik

Neither of these badges, especially the left one look of Soviet manufacture to me.

I dug up some patches I bought years before I found this place and one thing I always noticed that bothered me about the copies was that tell-tale thread trail across a different color to start the letter or other object. I never really got over that and stopped collecting patches other than ones already on uniforms. I see the same thing on that first patch.:(

Phillip

[pastfinder]

Originally Posted by Nota Bene

Could be a fake, because thye are supposed to be rare, but suddenly they are all over the Internet.

EGAPSS stands for Unified State (or National?) Aviation Search and Rescue Service

Alexei

Alexei,

I have my suspicions on the Search and Rescue patch. The embroidery matches extremely well with the patch in Stepanov's book. As for the other, the embroidery and overall construction is extremely similar to my one UN observer patch, of which I have no seen it sold on ebay since I bought mine many years ago. Does this mean it is legit? No, but my suspicion is that it is period, if not of Soviet manufacture.

Frank

Originally Posted by deValcourt

I dug up some patches I bought years before I found this place and one thing I always noticed that bothered me about the copies was that tell-tale thread trail across a different color to start the letter or other object. I never really got over that and stopped collecting patches other than ones already on uniforms. I see the same thing on that first patch.:(

Phillip

Phillip,

That white, and the backing on the patch, does not strike me as Russian or Soviet. Perhaps Ukrainian (or Chinese) manufacture. All I have is exactly one photograph in Stepanov's book to go off of and a photo of the reverse would be damn handy. If this patch is legit, the embroidery is extremely similar, even the thread count. What is off is the errant white thread. Problem again is I have only a single photograph of an original to go off of. Is this photograph of one patch out of possible hundreds/thousands or an exact representation of what every single patch looks like? I simply need more data.

These were purchased in a lot of patches that included the standard enlisted branch patches, all which are period and not contemporary fakes.

Frank