Pleasant Mountain Patch, Sealed (Maine Outline) — c. 1970s-80s

A vintage Pleasant Mountain patch from Bridgton, Maine, probably late 1970s or early 80s, still sealed in the original Apatche-Totem bag, header card intact: washable patch, made in U.S.A. by American Craftsmen, 70 W. 40th St., N.Y.C. Through the cellophane: a white rectangle with a blue merrowed border and a blue inner frame, the state of Maine in solid red carrying blue crossed skis, Pleasant Mountain in blue block and Bridgton, Maine in red beneath.

The bag is the whole argument. A patch you can see through plastic is one nobody has trimmed, re-backed, steamed or repaired, and those things are done a great deal more often than the trade likes to admit. What you are buying is a guarantee as much as an object.

Apatche-Totem Ltd. of 70 West 40th Street made a remarkable proportion of the New England ski patches that survive in their packaging — the same black header card turns up on sealed stock from Stowe, Jay Peak, Snow Valley, Dutch Hill, Killington and here. One address in midtown Manhattan supplied base lodges across six states, and nobody who bought one off a rack had any idea.

It raises the question every sealed patch raises and never answers: who buys a thing like this and then does not use it. A gift that missed. A second one, because the first went on the good jacket. Somebody who simply liked owning it. Whatever the reason, the plastic did its job for forty years.

Embroidered on twill, merrowed edge, unopened in the original packaging. Photos are the condition report.