My sharing of some rememberances, and patches, from Cahokia Mound Council and Cahokia Lodge 126 got Illinois collector and Blue Book Regional Editor Dave Pede in an e-mail discussion concerning the varieties and issues from this lodge.

Dave said:

I believe these images are adding some fuel to my fire about the existence of a distinct variety within the Gear shaped twill flaps.   I am attaching an image that you can post of 4 of my yellow twill 126 flaps.   Study them for a minute as one is unique (other than shades of yellow). That one being the same flap as Jim’s first flap. From discussions I have had I believe that Gear had two looms one smaller, possibly older or their first, and a second larger loom. The flaps made off of these two machines are identifiable different, even though they were probably run from the same punch patterns.  The differences are that the overall flap length is shorter by several millimeters and the border itself is narrower by a millimeter on the earlier flap.  My guess is that Gear started off with a particular loom and later upgraded to a newer better model. It does not necessarily mean that they did not use both machines together.  This is strictly my opinion but I believe that this helps my identify the smaller version flaps to be the earlier editions.   I have this same anomaly with the 115 Cascasquia flap as well.

I’ll have Destry chime in on this as well.  He’s from southern Illinois and came across a lot of Gear Mfg. patches. Gear was headquartered in St. Louis, MO. Actually we were just talking about this the other day as I was cataloging some of the consignment from the Morley-Topkis collection. There clearly are two length, actually may well be three, differences to Gear Mfg. flaps: 123mm, 126mm and 120mm.

I’ll see what Destry has to say. It may well be that one loom produced one size and another loom produced a different size – AT THE SAME time! If this is the case, there really is no basis for calling one before the other with respect to issuance.

I just got this note in from Jim:

…to my knowledge only a white, round OA patch was available in the beginning. I am not sure when the beginning was but as I remember .. I was tapped out in summer of 1955 .. because I was on the camp staff in 1956 and there on .. and I know whether it be 1955 or 1956 .. and I do not think 1956 because I believe I had the white patch for at least 1 year or more .. and received the white patch and then we got the flap patches just in time for Bloomington .. I still remember my mom fussing at me saying “Mom I have to get those patches switched before going to Bloomington. We all are going to wear the new patches.” Well it may not be an exact quote .. but pretty close.