Middlebury Mountain Club Patch, Felt — c. 1940s-50s

A vintage Middlebury College Mountain Club patch from Vermont, estimated to date from the 1940s or 50s, a round seal with a crimped, scalloped edge worked almost solid in royal blue on cream felt. MOUNTAIN CLUB arched across the top, MIDDLEBURY COLLEGE around the bottom, and in the middle a stitched landscape: a ridgeline, a stand of firs, water below.

Outing clubs are the quiet half of ski history. The racers got the write-ups and the trophies; the club got everybody else up the hill on a Saturday in somebody's older brother's car with four pairs of skis sticking out the window.

More Americans learned to ski through a club like this than through any resort marketing campaign ever written. Almost none of it was recorded.

They also ran on an enormous amount of unpaid labor by students who had no idea they were building an institution and simply wanted to get up a mountain on Saturday.

Embroidered on felt, scalloped cut edge. Photos are the condition report.