Muscogee Lodge 221 YS2 prototype
Comparison of S3 and YS2 Prototype
I traded for this prototype with Jason Spangler around the winter of 1992 and it's the only one that I've ever seen in nearly 20 years of collecting. This one has been tucked away since then in my brother's collection. It resembles the 1977 Jamboree flap but it is fully embroidered like the S3/S4/etc. The photo shows the prototype alongside an S3.
Anybody seen anything else like this? I have the YS1 hand stitched silver mylar Vigil flap but don't recall seeing any other flap prototypes from the manufacturer.
Creg Bradley
Submitted by Lodge Editor Greg McDaniel
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It was over 20 years ago that I obtained this patch and then fairly quickly traded it off to Creg at a Muscogee fellowship if I remember correctly. I really don’t have any memory of where I got it from (maybe at a Dixie?). I think Tripp makes some great points and whoever has taken up the effort to get Muscogee 221 straight on the Blue Book 2.0 project should take this into consideration. I say that because there will be a process to drop issues that are cataloged wrong and maybe this is a candidate. But what does it then become? A “Z” issue I suppose?
Tripp and I have discussed this via email and I support his assertions. It is unlikely to ever know what the story behind this is, but I trust Tripp’s personal experience from working with embroidery companies (he won’t bring this up, but he was a prolific designer of many 221 issues).
To Jason’s point, perhaps it is a “Z” issue. I recall purchasing a fair number of Seminole 85 and Echeconnee 358 flaps at a flea market in Charlotte back around 1990 that all had needlebreaks or some other errors. They were from a later time frame than this flap (1980’s I believe) but they also aren’t listed in the Blue Book to my knowledge.
As Tripp said, it’ just a neat oddity that I snapped up and wanted to share.
I do not believe that the theory that this is a prototype is credible. The source and history on this item is certainly a mystery, but it does not make sense that this would have been a true prototype. A prototype is when the lodge requests a pre-production sample of a design prior to finalizing and order.
This patch is clearly a major needlebreak. In the manufacturing process, the border is added as the last step. It is difficult to believe that a company in preparing a prototype would not notice such a major needlebreak before stitching the border. No one knows how this one unique patch came into existence, but a more plausible story — though only a guess — would be something like this patch (without border) was pulled from the culls inside the manufacturing facility and used to test the bordering equipment after re-threading, then it later made its way into circulation. There are many examples of patches “trashed” at the manufacturer later finding their way into the trading community (e.g. Muscogee “brown arrow” flap). Regardless of the real story, this is a neat oddity, and one worth discussing. I just don’t believe that it truly meets the definition of a “prototype.”