I know this only is relevent to a small group in the hobby but ….. I was cataloging some patches from a collection that we received. The collection included most of the ‘Bates Fakes’ from the 1970s. This was a notorious group of privately issued patches of many of the hardest OA patches at the time. Off the top of my head I don’t recall how many issues there are – something like 15 or so. The person who made them order hundreds or thousands of them. Initially they were pawned off as the real thing. Several are very close to the originals (the 454 King Kam is particularly good). Eventually, Dave Leubitz the editor of the Trader magazine at the time uncovered the fraud and exposed the situation. They’re now cataloged as ‘Z’s or fake patches. Because the originals in most cases are multi-hundred dollar items, many collectors pick them up as hole fillers. I’ve kept a set as a refernce set.

Now here’s the chuckle, as I was cataloging the 446 F1 fake from this set, I noticed it had a manufacturer’s repair. It gave Destry and I a chuckle. Here’s a private issue, that at the time probably only cost 35 cents but the manufactured repaired a needlebreak rather than toss it out. I guess you had to be there (or maybe its the time in the afternoon.)
Roy

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