Baltimore Police Historical Society Memorabilia

The following items are items given as gifts for any donation made to help pay for server costs, URL fees, and any other costs incured to keep the site going. Keep in mind we don't push sales, becasue we run this incorporation at cost, no one earns a paycheck, we are all volunteer, so the only funds we need are funds to cover the costs or running the history site, paying for research to investigate baltimore Police department's history. We do the bulk of our research through Sun paper archives, from time to time we will buy a book on our history, Ken likes books written closer to the time of the event ebing research, for example, when we research the baltimore fire we look for book written around the time of the fire, and by actual witnesses, because too often when we found books written many years later the book was written based on theroy of an incident, and not actual knowledge of an event. So without geting to deep into it, not needing much to run the Baltmore Police Historical Soicety INC, outside the website, and a second server for the larger files, we don't need a lot of Funds. ken pays the DotBlock fees out of hsi own pocket that is around $1400  a year, we also cover most of the URL cots, but thanks to donations paid directly to URL costs, and Sun Papaer archive fees much of that is covered from pledges that lead to our sending a patch, or patches, coin(s) and or other item. On this page we have pics of tiems we send out, other tiems can be purchased through redbubble, items that have ken's designs on them. Also, in order to keep costs down, we don't have an official shopping cart, there was a time when it was a simple matter of adding a mod, but now days to run a safe shopping cart, you are better to use a service, they cost money whether or not sales are generated, and they take a percentage off the top. So instead, we do a simple, make a list, add it up and send check money order or cash, otherwise you cna use PayPal, and we do have Venmo

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This 28 June 1952 article not only gives us info as to when the "rocker patch" was first used, giving us our first shoulder patch, it also mentions plans they had for a separate patch to be used on the shirt sleeves. We made a mock-up of what that patch would have looked like and we may have some sets made of the two patches, for collectors and educational purposes. 

This is the orange/gold and black rocker patch proposed for use on left coat/blouse sleeve only. 

Initially when the colors were ordered for a patch circa 1905, they ordered "Or" and "Sable." The patch maker at the time knew "Sable" was "Black," but mistakenly thought, "Or" was an abbreviation for, "Orange," so they used Orange and Black. Later they learned, "Or" was "Gold" or "Goldenrod" and "Sable" is "Black." 

OR ³  (Ôr) n. Heraldry - Or is English Heraldry for Gold or Goldenrod. In the Maryland the best way to describe it, is to look at our state flag, "Or" is the Yellow/Goldenrod color found along side the Black in the two Calvert quarters of our flag.

Gold, represented in heraldic engraving by a white field sprinkled with small dots.[Middle English, from Old French, from Latin aurum.]

This was initially applied to new officer’s uniforms as part of the uniform; veterans however had to pay 30 cents per patch to bring their issued uniforms up to date, their later uniforms came with the patches at no additional costs. 

While the first thoughts were to put these patches on coats and summer blouses only, and having a Blue/White patch made for the shirts. That plan never came to fruition, and shirts didn’t get patches until much later. Though, we were told about this patch long before we found the article, and the officer that talked about them said he once saw a Baltimore City Police rocker patch where the Black portion of the patch was White and the Gold portion was done in Blue. He said he didn't know a thing about it, he was working headquarters security and saw it and a bunch of other Baltimore Police items, that he thought may have been designing, uniform trials, logos etc. We took note of what he said, but until we found this article we didn't know anything about the Blue/White BPD rocker patches that he described as being White where we normally saw Black and Blue where the Gold is expected to be found. Jim said it was a nice looking patch, and he didn't understand why they never used it. We had researched his claims and couldn't find anything, so like we do with many of these kinds of things, we storied it in our memory banks until we found something that could help us understand what he had been telling us. Then we found this article, that introduced the 1952 Shoulder Patch, and during the interview, someone told the reporter about the Blue/White patch and what it would have been used for.  

Proposed white and blue to have been used on left shirt sleeve. When the rocker was devised it was to set us apart from the county police and from special police that used to design uniforms to look like us. Pomerleau put an end to that, he used an old 1907 law that allowed the BPD to approve or deny uniforms of “Special Police,” security guards etc. His first rule was no left sleeve patches, no collar pin rank, or Md insignia, and a 1" red seam down the pant legs etc. He was tired of not just having them try to look like us, but us having to answer for their errors from a public that was mistaking them for us..

This 1 Oct 1952 article not only talks about the "rocker patch" but also tells when why they did away with the "brass wheel and horse" used by traffic police and replaced it with a similar patch done in a cloth material.

 

Baltimore Police Motto large

Baltimore Police Motto Small

 

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Baltimore Police Retired Large

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