Dating Crest Craft patches

[zorgon]

No discussion on this topic can be presented without first recognizing the research and previous documentation by Stephen (Steve) Scriver who was one of the major early Canadian collectors of Crest Craft back in the 1970’s and 80’s. Some of the following is reprinted from his earlier research.

The founder and owner of Crest Craft Ltd. located in Saskatoon between the late 1930’s through to 1967, was Gus Werle. During this time he used several different methods of marking his high quality creations on the obverse, either with ink stamps, black writing on a white tape or a sticky yellow tape strip. In addition, he incorporated several different ink stamps, in part because his business experienced several fires over the years destroying the previous Company’s stamps, samples and records so new ones had to be created. Steve had done a detailed historical account and was able to narrow down periods of use for each of the over the dozen variations of labels & stamps he identified. Using that summary and to some degree my own experience, I have attached images of the back-stamps below along with the best estimate of their period of use.

At this point in time it is of course nearly impossible to confirm these dates but this reference is a best guess. Since all records of the business were destroyed in the fires, there is really no historical way of confirming individual orders or year of manufacture of the earlier crests. Hopefully this summary will be a useful tool for anyone trying to date a marked, Crest Craft patch.

Various format styles of the Crest Craft Company Logo are attached and cover the years indicated below. Selected image names indicate the period of use.

• 1934 – 1935 Earliest example found (ex Steve). Used when Gus was in the Hudson Essex Building
• 1936 – 1940 A printed tape label
• 1940 – 1942 A tape label from the DC Block
• 1940 – 1942 A black ink stamp
• 1942 – 1955 A purple ink stamp commonly found

• 1948 - 1953 A rarely seen purple stamp from their own building at 311, 22nd St. E.
• 1955 This stamp is believed to only exist in 1955
• 1957 – 1959 The designation, “LTD” was added to the name
• 1963 – 1973 An uncommon purple example from the Investors Building (courtesy of Steve)
• 1951 – 1970 Various versions of a yellow tape existed and overlapped the period of many of the above stamps, (courtesy of Steve). It often left a sticky, yellow residue when removed and traces can be found on the backs of many crests from this era.


One is occasionally fortunate enough to find a price marked on either the printed stickers or written on the back. For the more complex RCAF felt patches, this might typically be in the$1.00 to $1.50 range in the late 40’s early 50’s era. This would work out to an hour’s salary for a professional or two hours for a labourer at the time. The implication is that these weren’t inexpensive even at the time.

The reader may wish to see a selection of RCAF Crest Craft related patches here: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/C..._Craft_Patches

Hope this helps,
Wayne Logus

[RCAF_Mike]

Incredible read as always my friend! Thank You for compiling all of this