May Mountain Ski Patch, Sealed (Lost Mountain) — c. 1960s-70s

A vintage May Mountain ski patch from Maine, estimated to date from the 1960s or 70s, 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 round patch with a white merrowed border, a blue upper field carrying May in white blackletter, three white peaks across the middle, and a lime-green lower field with Mountain beneath.

The design is generic almost to the point of anonymity — it could be any mountain in any state, drawn by anybody. Which is exactly why the name had to be stitched on, and exactly why the patch matters.

Strip the lettering off this and it becomes decoration. With the lettering it is evidence: proof that a place called May Mountain existed in Maine, sold souvenirs, and had enough of a business to justify ordering a run of patches from a mill.

That is a low bar and it is also, for a great many of these hills, the only bar they cleared. Nobody is coming along later to establish it some other way. The patch is the document.

Collectors mostly ignore patches like this, because there is no story attached and nothing visually remarkable about them. That is precisely the gap. The mountains that are genuinely gone are gone partly because nobody found them interesting enough to write down at the time, and the quiet patches are the ones doing the most work.

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