Original Items: Only One Lot of 20 Available. This is a fantastic little grouping geared towards the insignia collector. The lot features 5 beautiful uniform removed shoulder sleeve insignia, including an “8 Wheel” Tank Destroyer patch!

The Items In This Lot:
- Tank Destroyer Patch
- 1st Amphibious Brigade Patch
- US Navy Amphibious Forces Patch
- (1) CBI Theater Cloth Printed Patch and (1) CBI Theater Bullion Patch
- Sterling Pin Back Combat Infantry Badge
- Pinback Pilot Wings
- x13 Various DUIs, Sweetheart Jewelry and UK/Commonwealth Devices

All items are in wonderful condition, please see photos for the finer details!

Comes more than ready for display.

The history of military patches in the United States is relatively brief. Some soldiers in the Civil War wore them for identification. These were typically made by mothers, wives or girlfriends on the home front.

At the time, virtually all embroidery was done by hand, just as it had been for thousands of years. Each patch was at least a little bit different, so it would have been difficult or impossible to standardize them. But not long after the end of that war, changes already wrought by the Industrial Revolution brought big changes to embroidery.

The invention of the sewing machine, and later the powered embroidery machine, greatly decreased the cost and increased the speed of embroidery production. That made it possible for custom embroidered patches to be produced rapidly and consistently.

By World War I, machine embroidery was well-established. After U.S. troops joined the war in 1917, the Army’s 81st Infantry Division created what’s come to be known as the first shoulder sleeve insignia, or tactical patch. The troops had trained at Fort Jackson, S.C. Near the fort was a body of water known as Wildcat Creek. Their patch design featured the silhouette of a wildcat on an olive drab background.

Within two decades, every Army group, squad, corps, and division had its own unique shoulder sleeve insignia. The 82nd Airborne had its mirror-image pair of “A”s for All-American. The 1st Infantry Division its “Big Red One,” and so on for all the others. Before long, insignia including unit patches and U.S. flags became a standard part of the uniform.