posted 12-08-2006 03:11 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by Bill Hunt:
Although I have to say, looking at those patches on the site, I think some are Lion but I suspect there are other manufacturers in there as well.

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posted 12-14-2006 01:07 PM               

It now has three columns - possible Lion Brothers candidates, AB Emblem versions, and now Eagle Crest versions.

The reason for adding Eagle Crest is that it's become clear that many of our possible LB patches are actually vintage Eagle Crest designs.

posted 12-21-2006 03:25 AM               

Let's be very clear here that only those patches marked as "Known Lion Brothers" were definitely produced by the company (even then this only the opinion of myself and other contributors to the list). All others shown in the "Possible ion Brothers" column are just that - possibilities. The more likey ones are clearly marked as Probable, others may be classed as Suspected, Possible or Disputed.

If you sell any of these other patches as "Lion Brothers" without qualification then you are misrepresenting them. Also, if you buy any of these patches in the hope that they might be Lion Brothers versions then bear in mind when you do so that they may well turn out to have been manufactured by someone else.

posted 12-21-2006 03:43 AM               

One of the best-known distributors of Lion Brothers patches throughout the Apollo era was the National Air & Space Museum at Washington. I've seen plenty of examples of Apollo era Lion Brothers patches mounted on NASM cards. I also have a Lion Brothers Shuttle Program patch on an NASM card so we know that there was at least some overlap into the Shuttle era.

Has anyone seen any LB shuttle mission patches mounted on NASM cards? If we knew at which mission Lion Brothers stopped supplying patches to the NASM then we might be able to eliminate later NASM mounted patch designs as most likely produced by someone else.

What made me think of this was the Jarvis-Walker STS-41D NASM card mounted patch that appeared on eBay a while back. We know that this patch was only produced and released at a very specific time. If this patch was produced by AB Emblem then we can assume that at the time of the planned launch of that mission LB were no longer supplying patches to the NASM.

This would imply that any NASM card mounted patches from the flown STS-41D mission onwards can be assumed to have been supplied by AB Emblem or another supplier.

As a concrete example I have an STS-51F one piece patch on an NASM card. The patch appears to be the design we have listed in the Possible LB column in the list, but if LB were no longer supplying patches to the NASM in 1985 we can rule it out as an LB design.

posted 12-29-2006 09:53 AM               

Regarding the patch designs produced by Eagle Crest, it seems to me from what I've seen that their designs are identical to those of Swissartex.

Am I just imagining this, or did one manufacturer actually produce patches for the other? Certainly the early cards for Eagle Crest patches say "Swiss Made" so maybe Eagle Crest were actually reselling patches made by Swiss Artex.

posted 12-30-2006 02:33 AM               

For example, the distinctive STS-8 design shown on the EagleCrest website seems identical to the Swissartex patch (as seen packaged and labelled).

The STS-51D that was part of the recently-sold batch mounted on an Eagle Crest card has the same borders and the same curved ridges in the landmasses as the packaged and labelled Swissartex versions I've seen.

posted 01-15-2007 03:34 AM               

Previously the only examples I'd seen have had the plastic backings with a square grid of small dimples, like that seen on the coated versions of STS-1, and on STS-5/6/7/8 and 41C.

posted 04-03-2007 03:55 AM               

Where we seem to be stuck is STS-51D/E. I've yet to see a likely candidate for an LB version of either of these patches, although it seems likely that they produced a run of patch bodies for STS-41E/F that could potentially have been re-used for STS-51D with an added tab.

posted 04-04-2007 08:53 PM               

I do think however, that there may be a possibility of a few very rare STS-7 and STS-8 bare backed patches out there, just from what Eli has told me. He never remembered a coating on his that he had. Seems like there would be, since STS-5 and 6 have both versions, you don't see the bare backed version of those around hardly ever either.

posted 04-11-2007 06:51 AM               

This set contains the plastic-backed versions of STS-1, 2, 5, 6, 7, 8 and 41-C, confirming once again that these designs are Lion Brothers.

It also ends with the design of STS-51C that most people consider to be LB, and the content of the set lends weight to the theory that STS-51C was their last patch.