posted 11-27-2005 01:20 PM               

Lion Brothers made patches for Shuttle missions STS-1 through STS-9 and also made STS-41B and 51A mission patches. Patches for the STS-1 through 9 are very much like the Apollo LB patches in they are cloth backed with no coatings.

posted 11-27-2005 02:47 PM               

He said he didn't know exactly up to which missions were made by LB but had heard up through STS-34. I purchased a STS-27 and a STS-29 advertised on eBay as Lion Brothers from Randy Hunt. STS-29 fit the description that Erik had provided and has the plastic coating you mentioned.

posted 11-29-2005 01:48 AM               

I have one of these, and the coating on the back is correct for Lion. It also features the more 3D appearance in the embroidery - thicker embroidery - that the early Lion patches have.

posted 11-21-2006 08:39 AM               

I've been trying to build up a set recently and can identify quite a few of the early LB designs now but some I'm not 100% sure of.

posted 11-21-2006 09:05 AM               

I am still looking for the patches of STS-7 and STS-8 having cloth backs. Further on I do not really know whether there are patches after STS-51A.

posted 11-24-2006 10:43 PM               

• 41-C NO?
  
• 41-D YES (John)
  
• 41-G YES (John)
  
• 51-A YES (Ron)

• 51-C thru 61C NO?

• 51-L YES (John - although not 100% sure)
  
• 26 YES (John)
  
• 27 YES (Ron, John)
  
• 29 YES (Ron)
  
• 30 YES (John)
  
• 28 YES (Ron?)
  
• 34 YES (John)
  
• 33 NO?
  
• 32 YES (Ron)
  
• 36 YES (Bill)
  
• 31 YES (John)
  
• 41 NO?
  
• 38 NO?
  
• 35 YES (John)
  
• 37 NO?
  
• 39 YES (Bill)

posted 11-25-2006 02:53 AM               

To your list I would add that I'm pretty positive about LB designs for STS-41C and 51-C.

posted 11-25-2006 11:28 AM               

If a particular patch design turns up consistently in set of patches where all the 'known' shuttle patch designs match those from Lion Brothers then I would suspect that design to be a likely Lion Brothers one. That's speculation of course not certainty, but it's a basis for further investigation.

I'm rather surprised that you seem to think the company actually missed out whole swathes of missions before deciding to produce certain patches again. Surely it's more logical to imagine they produced patches consistently for all missions up until a certain point?

posted 11-26-2006 09:48 PM               

When I mention "coated" here, it means like the vacuum sealed backing, not the normal iron on backing. And I am not sure of some, only because I don't have a reference to positively identify them as Lion Bros.

But I do know, the STS-41B and 51A are Lion. Ron and I have had a lot of discussion about this subject, but no one can be sure at the moment.

• Shuttle Program, Coated
  
• ALT, Cloth Back
  
• STS-1 thru STS-5 Cloth Back
  
• STS-6, 7 do not have
  
• STS-8, Not Sure, Coated
  
• STS-9 Cloth Back
  
• STS-41B Coated
  
• STS-41C, D, G Not Sure, Coated
  
• STS-51A Coated
  
• STS-51C Not Sure, Coated
  
• STS-51D I have not found a Coated one
  
• STS-51G, F, I, J Not Sure, Coated
  
• STS-61A, B, C Not Sure, Coated
  
• STS-51L Not Sure, Coated
  
• STS-26, 27 Have not found a Coated one
  
• STS-29 Not Sure, Coated
  
• STS-30 I have not found a Coated one
  
• STS-28, Not Sure, Coated
  
• STS-34 I have not found a Coated one
  
• STS-33, 32 Not Sure, Coated

posted 11-27-2006 09:41 AM               

I know Ron already has great scans and details of shuttle patches on his site but this list would be more a temporary basis for the discussion here.

What I'd like to be able to do is to put scans of all the patches people propose as being known or possible LB patches.

It wouldn't be definitive and no-one should be afraid to put forward a patch design as a candidate. No flaming should result from someone suggesting a particular design, just some healthy discussion.

If anyone would like to send me scans at about 100dpi of STS patches they suggest might be LBs I'd be very happy to put them on this provisional list. You should include scans of the backs too.

posted 11-27-2006 01:51 PM               

I need to add scans of the backs of the proposed LB patches. I'm also missing lots of later AB patch scans...

I'm sure there will be people disagreeing with what I've already posted. Just try to keep it polite!

posted 11-27-2006 11:57 PM               

But then after that -- there STILL seem to be no examples yet for these seven flights: 51-B, 36, 41, 38, 37, 39 and 40.

posted 11-28-2006 07:59 AM               

He's going to send me post-Challenger scans soon.

posted 11-29-2006 05:04 PM               

I'm particularly intrigued by the question of the STS-5/6/7/8 designs. It seems that the first 4 missions and STS-9 turn up fairly frequently and are widely recognised as LBs but the four missions in between seem to raise more questions.

The designs I posted for the 5-8 missions are those I've found appearing in those slots consistently in 'sets' of LB STS patches from different sources. That doesn't prove that they are LB of course but it seems odd that these apparently non-AB designs turn up each time in collections of otherwise all LB patches.

posted 11-29-2006 10:25 PM               

I took six months off to collect something different. I collected all of my belongings and moved my home from Georgia to a mountain top in Tennessee.

I have had several emails in the last two weeks asking if I would wake up from this dream I'm living, and take a look at this thread and get involved. Looks like finally the community is getting some good feedback on the LB issue.

I would like to make some comments and I will send a few scans to Chris to help with identification or stir the pot more. I put great amount of time into researching Lion Brothers patches last year and the first five months of this year. This is some of things that I have found out from my own purchases, others I have examined, talks with other collectors, and a very lucky find.

Starting with the Lion Brothers Shuttle Program patch. This patch is the one patch that can truly identify the graduation of coatings used by Lion Brothers during this manufacturing time period. I also believe it to be the only patch that LB continued to produce outside of the original production period. (It is widely accepted that Lion Brothers only produced patches at the time of the actual mission.) The STS-1 however may have been the exception, since I have collected three different examples. The first one is a bare backed version with the starch type stiffener applied. The second has a tight vacuum sealed type plastic coating clear in color, the third has a tight vacuum sealed plastic coating purple in color. All three were EXACTLY the same in stitching front and back in every respect. I also have a fourth example I am almost certain is a LB version, but the stitching on the front has changed slightly and the back has the tail. I say this is also an LB because it matches the style change in the STS 5, 6, 7 and 8 LB patches.

I have an STS-2 emblem exactly the same in front stitching as the bare backed version everyone seems to be familiar with, however it has a gauze bandage type cloth back. NO Coating just a white cloth covering. This example came from a woman that worked at Lion Brothers. I was able to pick up STS-1, two different coated STS-2's 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 41B, 41B, 41C, 41G, 51A, and 2 different STS Program patches. There were a couple of multiples in the group. The lady I bought them from was from the daughter of the person that worked there. She had passed away,and all she could tell me was her mother sometimes brought home things she had done, and these were the space patches she had. The family lives in Maryland and it is too long of a story of how I found her. None the less, I am fairly certain that each of these examples gets us to through 1984. I do not know why she did not have any others for later years, and the daughter could not give me any indication when her mother stopped working for LB.

"My" theory is that LB started playing around very seriously in 1982 with there manufacturing process including coatings and different sewing lines. STS 1, 2, 3, 4, seem to be very straight forward, however STS 5, 6, 7, 8, show both old and new process in designs. 1984 seemed to be the new line of both sewing, quality, and coatings. It makes sense that in 1983 manufacturing changes caused a struggle of sort if line changes were made, coatings applied, and seems to be a few quality issues with STS 5 & 6 mission patch productions.

I will try and give Chris some scans of any differences and will confirm any of those I just spoke of in his image gallery. I will also send scans of probable STS 26 and 51G that look to be the same manufacture as others in this era's images Chris has listed.

posted 11-30-2006 04:08 AM               

quote:

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Originally posted by hoorenz:
The STS-29 in your AB list is not the flown version.

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posted 11-30-2006 05:48 AM               

I have two STS-1s with coated backs. In both cases the plastic has a fine pattern of circular indentations in a square grid. Measuring the indentations I find that 5 dots span about 5mm. This pattern is also present on my two LB Shuttle Program patches.

This fine pattern is also the same one I see on my STS-5/6/7/8s and my 41C. It is also, incidentally, exactly the same pattern as on the backs of the Lb-style Apollo and Skylab patches that I acquired some time ago (which you can see on my extras site under the fake/replica LB patches tab). This tends to make me think that those Apollo patches were indeed produced by Lion Brothers as an experiment with new designs/machinery.

By comparison, the earliest AB STS patches I have all have a different pattern on the coatings. These have larger round dimples, with 3 dots spanning about 5mm. My old AB 41D and 41G have a finer pattern (about 4 dots per 5mm) but arranged in more of a honeycomb pattern not a square grid. Later missions have a smooth fragile waxy coating or large dimples again.

Going back to the LB patches, the two STS-2s I have with coated backs both have a kind of a slick coating that looks as if it's been smoothed across from one side to the other, sometimes leaving hollows.

posted 12-01-2006 06:47 AM               

If you look at the back all the patches through to STS-51C at least are the ones commonly seen in LB STS patch sets. As with other such groups I have seen the STS-5, 6, 7, 8 and 41C designs are the ones I included in my list as possible Lion Brother designs. All other designs in this series are the ones I think we have agreed are definitely LBs.

The later patches (lower row on the back and on to the sides and front) I'm not so sure about.

posted 12-01-2006 11:35 AM               

I have two STS-1s with a coated reverse and the stitching patterns front and back are identical.

What's interesting is that there is a distinct difference on the stitching of the front designs between the bare back and coated versions. The bare back version has a more solid black windshield, the coated versions have a detail of black stitching down the right hand side of the shuttle fuselage that's absent on the bare back version. The cloud patterns are also distinctly different between the two versions. The bare back version has the upper body of the small shuttle heavily over-stitched by the flames of the larger one, although this may be just my version.

I also have two STS-2s with a coated reverse (different to that of STS-1), again with identical stitching on the two examples.

As with STS-1 it's clear that the coated and bare back versions have been stitched differently, leading to subtle but noticable differences in the fronts (I would say the front of the coated version is more crude than the bare-backed one). The way the stitching has been done on the reverse is very much like that on the reverse of the coated STS-1s.

Has anyone noticed this before?

posted 12-05-2006 06:27 AM               

Are there any examples of LB STS patches with separate tabs? If not then presumably they only released their patch versions at about the time of the launches themselves rather than in advance.

posted 12-06-2006 04:57 AM               

I think they are very best the AB's STS-5, STS-6, STS-8, STS-9, 41D, 41G, 51G, 61A, 61B and 51L, than the LB's, mentioning only the 25 firsts.

posted 12-06-2006 05:53 AM               

Concerning quality of the ABs I watched that they vary during the years. They get worser some time and turn back becoming better.

Additionally my feeling is that the look and feel of a patch is related to a collector himself and therefore you will not come to a uniform conclusion.

posted 12-07-2006 08:40 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by dmash4077:
Ron said he may have an STS-40.

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