Sunday River Ski Patch (Red Arch) — c. 1970s-80s

A vintage Sunday River ski patch from Newry, Maine, estimated to date from the 1970s, square with a blue merrowed border on a blue ground — a yellow sun rising behind a white ridge with a red arc drawn over the whole thing like a sunrise framed in a doorway, sunday river in cream lowercase beneath. Soiled and worn from the years it spent on a sleeve.

The arch device shows up on ski patches all over New England in this period and nobody has ever satisfactorily explained where it came from. Some mill had it in the catalog, presumably, and sold it to everybody.

It works. A frame around a mountain makes the mountain look like somewhere you are about to enter.

You find the same frame on patches from mountains four states apart that had no connection to each other beyond a shared supplier and a catalog of stock borders.

Embroidered on twill, merrowed edge, with soiling and wear. Photos are the condition report.