I was reading one of the popular USAF patch forums the other day and there was a discussion about fake patches. That discussion and countless others I have read before got me thinking about collecting USAF memorabilia. Specifically, is it a hobby or is it preserving history? This is important, because if this is a hobby, then these items are collectables. If it is historical preservation, then these items are artifacts. Since most people collect patches first and foremost, I’ll leave this discussion about patches, but it relates to flight scarves as well.
Are We Really Preserving History?
Obviously, collecting patches is a hobby, but a lot of collectors like to go on about how they are preserving history. I believe the vast majority of collectors are doing very little to preserve history and are just “collecting.” Having a bunch of stuff squirreled away under your bed is not preserving history. If you don’t believe me, try to give (not sell) your collection to a major museum or organization. The curator is going to say, “Well, you have some nice things, but I have no idea where they are from or even if they are authentic or not. Sorry, we are not interested.”
Without any context, your collection is just a pile of colorful pieces of cloth. Yes, you can argue that you kept them from the trash heap (or some pilot’s grandchildren), but as collectables, outside of a few hundred people, these patches are essentially worthless. Frankly, to most people, it is no different than collecting spoons or beanie babies. If you want your patches to be worth anything, it is going to be as an artifact (a historical item with context), not as a nice embroidered piece of cloth.
That is the problem that I see with just treating this as a hobby. As a hobby, it doesn’t really matter if your items are fakes or not. They are just curios. They have no context or direct historical association. Whether you got them from a veteran, a flea market, or made it your self doesn’t really matter to the rest of the world. Most collectors have no way to provide any context to an individual item or prove whether they are authentic or not. The most that can be said is that a particular unit used it, but few people have any documentation of when and where they were used or how it was acquired.
People like to tell me, don’t worry about that, “I know all that stuff, and it is right up here in my head.” Sorry to tell you, but as you get older, you are going to forget. Furthermore, most of what you remember are triggered memories. You see a pile of patches and think to yourself, “I got this one at this airshow when I got this one,” and so on. “So, it is from this era. It is different than this one over here.” Well, try to remember all that someday when a toddler gets a hold of your collection and it is scattered all around. Regardless, if everything you know about these patches is up in your head and when you pass on, your heirs are going to have a pile of patches and nobody is going to know any different.
So, if you don’t write this stuff down, it is not going to be remembered. Believe me, I’ve posted generic questions about scarves to forums with 3,000 members and only gotten one person who could answer me. I’ve also asked every aircrew and maintainer I can find. Sure, a lot of people don’t care, but also most people don’t know or they don’t remember. Frankly, many folks act like I have just asked them about what type of buttons were on a shirt they were wearing 20 years ago.
So, What Do We Need to Be Doing?
I really see a need to not only collect patches and scarves and other items, but to also collect history. To preserve history, your collectables need to be identified and have context. You need to be tracking what it is, who you got it from, when was it used, etc. You need to be looking for dates, times, units, and locations. You also need to be prepared to share this information with other collectors so that the hobby can advance.
I know that many collectors are reticent to share information. Some have a philosophy that “information is power.” In other words, I learned this and I am not going to share it with someone else so they can use it against me. Other collectors will not share information because they think it is “worth something,” or heaven forbid, somebody is going to make some money with it. It might be “worth something,” but look at the problems the news media is having trying to charge for online content. News is something that has a lot of demand. If anyone takes information about patches or scarves and makes a book out of it, the return on the book will be a small percentage of costs put in. It will be a labor of love. Trust me.
Other collectors believe that providing information only helps the counterfeiters. I believe that you beat the counterfeiters not by withholding information, but by providing information. Now, I am not advocating giving the store away. You have to keep some secrets (such as the reverse side) and only provide low-resolution images. But, if the average enthusiast cannot tell a real item from a fake, the counterfeiters have won. Without records and documentation, the counterfeiters will win, because there is a doubt on authenticity.
The way you solve this is to identify the real ones and expose the fake ones. Sadly, the main reason most collectors worry about a patch being fake is to preserve their “investment” of money acquiring it or time finding it. I have noticed that every time a patch is outed as being a fake on a forum, the next day, there are folks who I assume were forum readers offering the same patch for sale on eBay and trying to pass it off to some other unsuspecting collector. A few of these sellers will generously include a caveat and say something like, “this patch may or may not be authentic, I am not sure.” That is the most cancerous attitude a collector can have. If it is a fake, throw it in the trash or write, “fake” on the back of it. We have to advance this hobby or the true historical value of these items will be lost.
So, the question remains, are you collecting as a hobby or for history?
