Power of Suggestion...Mysterious White Flap

I was approached by a person (name held for privacy) by email about this mysterious white flap. He told me he had a friend from Midwest Swiss that sent him I believe 3 white flaps in a large grouping of patches. He believed it was a prototype or sample made by the company. He offered to sell me one and asked me to pass it on to friends who might be interested in buying one. I offered to pay $100.00 and he accepted and I received my patch a few days later. He also told me that he had more flaps on the way from his source and when they got in that there was no more mysterious white flaps in the package.


ZS-8 (Midwest Swiss)

The more he talked with me about the flaps and the more I talked with a couple Black Eagle Collectors; the more I felt that something was off about this patch. At first, I embraced it as a potential prototype. I was reading SPA blog and apparently some other collector ran into similar situation with a different lodge and started questioning its true origins as well. Just when all the dust settled a seller on Ebay was selling a lot of 5 of these white flaps on Ebay. Rare proto-type my foot. I won that auction and a fellow collector asked about buying one from me. I wasn't feeling all up to snuff that weekend so I didn't get back to him over that weekend. He was offered a second chance option to buy his own lot of 5 flaps and who knows how many other second chance offers were sent out. There are sure a lot of these white flaps for an issue never ordered with that color background. So many, you could almost call it a full blown issue.


$Show Me The Money$

Regardless of your personal feelings about this patch...The bottom line it was not authorized by the lodge for release. Based off that conclusion alone that makes this patch a "Z" instead of a "Y" for prototype or sample. If that is not enough evidence for you the sheer number of them should also disqualify it as a prototype or sample. This patch is about as valuable as 2 Million Zimbabwe Bank Notes. I urge you not to invest too much money into this flap. Pay what you believe it is worth.

I would love to be proved wrong about this patch. I feel bad about this issue because I convinced another collector to buy it based of my opinion of it. In honestly, I felt like I was taken advantage of. While I do not necessarily blame the person that sold me the patch I can blame his source and the company that allowed these patches to leave its site. You think a company that keeps worthless cloth lying around all these years would keep invoices for the orders as well. Show me an invoice for this patch and I will gladly accept it as official.