Saddleback Mountain Ski Patch (Red Border) — c. 1970s

A vintage Saddleback ski patch from Rangeley, Maine, estimated to date from the 1970s, round with a red merrowed border — a deep blue sky with a pale twin peak rising into it, SADDLEBACK in red on a white band straight across the middle, Rangeley, Me. in blue beneath. Three colors and a shape, which in 1974 was everything a ski area needed.

Three colors and a shape. That is the entire design, and in 1974 it was everything a ski area needed to say about itself — here is the mountain, here is the name, that will be three dollars.

The restraint was mostly budget rather than taste. It reads as taste now, which is the usual trick time plays on old graphics.

The merrowed edge is the detail worth looking at on any patch of this age. It is the rolled satin stitch around the outside, it is the first thing to go, and its condition tells you more about how a patch was treated than anything on the face.

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