unintentional collection

[Gunny Hartmann]

Some great patches there!..

[overlandflyer]

edited/ corrected a few mis-IDs in the pictures i posted.
hopefully correct now.

army organization is interesting, but slightly confusing. never knew about all the corps, division, battalion, regiment, etc designations. i actually wound up working for the military for 33 years (army - 9; navy/marines - 24), but was never in any service myself. as a sophomore in college, i was part of the last draft lottery, but i recall my number being in the 300 range.

i noticed some ads for patches include a UV light caveat.
do old vs. new threads appear different under a black light?

cheers...gary

[Masonk]

Very nice collection, Gary! Regarding the UV light, this is a good way to identify synthetic vs non-synthetic threads, however is not absolute.

Basically, WWII manufactured insignia would not have synthetic threads used in the manufacturing process, and therefore would not glow under a UV light. However, some detergents used to clean uniforms can give a false-positive, causing the material to glow.

On the other end, most synthetics would glow under a UV light, however not all, giving a false negative.

Some use the "Burn-Test", where you use a lighter to burn a piece of thread. If the thread balls up, then it's synthetic. If the thread burns clean, it's not.

To throw a wrench into all of that, some patches manufactured post-WWII and even through Vietnam used non-synthetic threads. So while it may be a cut-edge patch that doesn't glow, that doesn't mean it's WWII manufactured.

Basically, the UV light can be used as one of many tools in determining the age of a patch, however the key is studying known war time examples, including their variants, to determine WWII vs post-war.

I just replied to your other thread with a good reference book that explains what I said much more elegantly and elaborately.