posted 08-12-2016 11:53 AM               

The Apollo 11 and 12 patches are the dated commemoratives, while the Apollo 7 has a red border instead of the dark blue/black border.

posted 08-12-2016 12:24 PM               

America's most historic emblems. Complete collection of all of the Apollo Moon Landing emblems. Special all 6 for $5.00 2 sets (12 emblems) for only $9.00. Free catalog with order.

posted 10-03-2020 12:05 PM            

"Allen Flint" was touted as the company president but was not a real person. It was Bennett Heck "doing business as."

When the space program went into high gear, he decided to capitalize on it. Notable was his "8 color" Apollo 11 date patch which he designed and created the artwork for – including the location of every stitch. This was needed for programming the big Swiss Embroidery machines which used a punched paper tape at that time.

This many colors would be too costly with thread colors with all the bobbin changes needed. Instead, some of those colors started as white. He paid neighborhood Polish ladies a penny a patch to swipe with permanent magic markers the Earth blue, olive branches green, and colors onto two of the date numbers. Excess color did not show on the black background.

And if you look closely at the brown of the Earth, it is slightly darker than the other brown areas due to the blue swiped over the entire Earth. Looking at the back the patch reveals white threads in the various locations colored by markers on the front.

He also invented and designed triangular "Sputnik One" and "Vostok One" patches that never existed in real life. He sold a "space suit" flag silk screened on actual space suit fabric, moon landing photos, the usual embroidered U.S. flags in various sizes and a handsome "woven" flag, and other space memorabilia.

The photos below are both in and out of the Flint Model Supply header. He had previously sold them in a sealed plastic bag with a small single sheet descriptive inside in a promotion by "Space Patch" but when you received the patch it was from Flint Model Supply with a full sheet flyer advertising his other space patches.

Three days before the astronaut parade in Chicago he had the idea for a promotion. Bennett Heck was also an excellent commercial artist and handled his own art and ad placements. He took a photo with his 4x5 view camera with a polaroid back, instead of typeset copy he used an IBM Executive model which had a carbon ribbon and half space to justify lines, transfer lettering for special fonts, and made the art for the flag. He cut rubylith for the photo separation. Then printing plates were made and the flyers printed three to a sheet and cut. The front and back of the "Space Patch" flyer is shown below.

He got a western suburbs Boy Scout troop to go all over downtown Chicago and they got to keep the knap sacks he bought them. He also chartered a bus and secured insurance. Yes, in just three days but he was good at twisting arms and getting people to say "yes."

Later, Bennett would found more small companies like MM Limited, Bold Industries (with me), and then cofound the very successful Great American Buckle Company (GABCO) for which he did many of designs. Flint just faded away as he lost interest. After Bennett's death GABCO changed its name to "Great American Products" and moved to Texas.

Finally, shown is a color advertisement from the April 1970 Boys Life magazine. This was the first issue that had color advertisements and this was a very expensive ad. But Bennett said, "Not when you consider this magazine sits on the coffee tables of middle class families for a month."

posted 10-10-2020 05:33 PM               

quote:

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Originally posted by kosmo:
...has anyone actually seen a Apollo 8 Flint Model Supply patch?

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