The 1950's and the 1960's
These two decades are the farthest back my collection goes. I've never even seen an earlier patch, so I couldn't tell you whether or not they even printed patches before this time. I would conjecture that they did.
The basic pattern for these two decades was rather simple. One design was used, that of the "naked butt Indian." Each decade featured two different color schemes, and each year that a scout attended camp he received a strip with that year printed on it, and eventually the years all added up to a completed border around the patch. These year strips are very difficult to come by and verify because this was a popular trend across the nation and many such strips look like those printed for Rota-Kiwan. The only example I have is a 1967 strip, which is shown below.
This is the patch from the late 1950's and is the oldest of my collection. Note that it is the only Rota-Kiwan patch with a cut edge and not a rolled edge.
This is the variation from the early 1960's. The border is rolled and the background is solid white, instead of colored, as was the 1950's version.
This is the last of the "Indian" designs used at Rota-Kiwan. Note that the 1967-year strip had a cut edge and not a rolled one. Because these strips are so hard to come by, it is difficult to know which years exactly coincided with which patches.
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