Thailand Border Patrol Police, 2nd Army Area and a story

[gwb123]

Attached is a nice example of a Thailand Border Patrol Police, reportedly from the 2nd Army Area.

 

This would date from the mid 1990's. The base material is unembroidered, and the design is finely stitched by a large production process. As typical with Thai patches, they colors are very vibrant.

 

The backing is a dense fine mesh, a bit tighter than what is seen on wartime examples made for US forces.

 

I know this one is real because...

[gwb123]

This is the label my wife attached to back of it when she received it.

 

She had a coworker who was advising the Thai military. I asked her to pass along a request to pick up some patches during one of his trips over there, and he obliged by bringing back abut a dozen of them. Back in the office, he identified each and every one of them. My wife was kind enough to label them and write down the descriptions, otherwise I would of had no idea what any of them were.

 

As time went on, I foolishly decided to sell or trade them off when I decided I was not going to pursue collecting Thai items. I managed to buy this one back, but it is the only example that I have.

 

If anyone out there finds another with a label like this, I'd really like to get some of them back. I am sure they are in a collection somewhere (Or on the back of some teenager's surfing jacket!)

[M60Driver]

Generic Thai Border Patrol patch used throughout the country back in the 1980s and 1990s when they were pretending to chase Khun Sa.  I have been selling these off and on on Ebay for years since I bought a large bunch back in the early 1990s.  I drank a lot of Mae Khong whiskey with the border Patrol folks back in the day.