Just in from Regional Blue Book Editor Dave Pede. We’ll try to get some pictures of the patches. Just another problem we’re having in our hobby.

From Dave:

L’rs, It has come to my attention that there is a new round of fakes coming out into the collecting world sourcing from Midwest Swiss Embroidery in Chicago. These are being pushed as overruns. Many of these starting to pop up, too many to be legit. They appear to be being reordered off of the original loom tapes. I am not sure who has access to them, but what I am sure is that most of the ones I have seen from Illinois lodges are NOT the correct issue to be an ‘overrun’. They are close, but not quite right. Two specific examples are a 157S9 from Leekwinai and 246 S0.5 from Pachsegink. The 157 issue was a single order placed back in the late 80’s and is a relatively scarce issue. The 246 was issued in 1994 as the Charter member flap, one per charter member. There are a few distinctions that give these away. Flat rolled border. Very thin clear plastic back. Horizontal marks in the plastic back. Color slightly wrong. I have seen others from different lodges that could be in question, 389, 567 OBV set, etc. But I will let the other Bluebook editors make the determination of legitimacy. As for the Illinois lodges I will be marking these as Z’s.