Shawnee Peak Patch (Racing With The Moon) — c. 1990s

A vintage Shawnee Peak patch from Bridgton, Maine, estimated to date from the 1990s, a square with rounded corners and a grey merrowed border. The blue peak and its white trail again, a red sun at the left and a gold crescent at the upper right, SHAWNEE PEAK in red block caps — and underneath, in small blue letters, the line the mountain ran for its night skiing: RACING WITH THE MOON.

Four words, stitched onto a patch, doing more work than most resorts manage in a whole brochure. It doesn't mention snow, terrain, lifts or vertical. It tells you what it feels like to be on that hill at eight o'clock on a February night, which is the only thing anybody was ever actually buying.

Taglines almost never make it onto patches. The format is too small and the lettering too expensive, so what you normally get is a name and a picture. Somebody at Shawnee Peak paid for the extra line and was right to.

The grey border is the other tell. Nobody edged a patch in grey before the late eighties; it was the decade's idea of restraint, arriving immediately after the decade that put neon pink on everything.

Embroidered on twill, merrowed edge. Photos are the condition report.