{"product_id":"vintage-colby-outing-club-embroidered-patch","title":"Colby Outing Club Patch, Felt — c. 1940s-50s","description":"\u003cp\u003eA vintage Colby Outing Club patch from Waterville, Maine, estimated to date from the 1940s or 50s, cut from a round of tan felt with a raw edge, soiled and holed near the top. COLBY OUTING CLUB chain-stitched in blue around the ring, and in the middle a blue peak with a small figure standing on the summit planting a flag.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eFelt-ground club patches are older technology than the twill everybody moved to, and they age completely differently. Twill frays at the merrow and holds its color. Felt softens, picks up the shape of whatever it was pressed against, and fades evenly across the whole face.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis one has been somewhere. You can see it in the nap.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCollege outing clubs ran the Maine outdoors for most of the twentieth century — hiking, canoeing, winter camping and skiing, organized by students with no budget and an enormous amount of enthusiasm, on equipment that would now be considered unsafe.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOuting club patches are also the best evidence available for what people actually did outdoors before the recreation industry existed to sell it to them. There were no technical fabrics, no guided trips, no permits. There were students in wool with surplus gear walking into the woods in January, and the only record is a membership patch and a few photographs in a yearbook nobody has opened since.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eChain-stitched on felt, cut edge, with soiling, thinning and a hole at the top. Photos are the condition report.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Ropetow Vintage Co.","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":55537896554801,"sku":"RV-ME-106","price":85.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0996\/2048\/7473\/files\/ropetow-vintage-co-colby-outing-club-patch.jpg?v=1785621704","url":"https:\/\/ropetowvintage.com\/products\/vintage-colby-outing-club-embroidered-patch","provider":"Ropetow Vintage","version":"1.0","type":"link"}