For collectors of vintage embroidered space mission patches there tends to be one patch in particular for each mission that is considered the definitive "Crew Patch". The main criteria for this patch are that it should have been used by the crew themselves at some stage around the time of the mission itself, and that it should be rare, and thus challenging to collect. For some missions the identity of the "crew patch" is obvious, but for others it's more difficult to say which patch can really meet the criteria mentioned above.

By their very nature the crew patches are not common and some are exceptionally rare. If you're looking for a particular Gemini crew patch for example, you might have to wait several years to see a single example sold. Other patches are more common, with examples turning up for sale every few months.

The most obvious place to look for these patches is eBay but you will need to be prepared to spend some time trawling through listings in order to spot a crew version of a particular patch. Most rare versions are not listed as such by the seller so you'll have to do the identification yourself. This does offer the possibility that you'll find yourself a bargain but you should be aware that there are a lot of very knowledgable patch collectors searching eBay very thoroughly every day so you're unlikely to be the only one to have spotted a rarepatch.

Beyond eBay, there are number of auction houses that hold specialist space collectible auctions once or twice a year. These auctions sometimes include crew patches, although more often than not these will be flown examples (and thus seriously expensive).

As with most things, the value of these crew patches is based on supply and demand. There are quite a number of determined space patch collectors out there with deep pockets who are intent on collecting an example of every crew patch so when a rare patch appears for sale the result is often going to be a bidding war.

The most readily-available of the crew patches, such as those of Apollo 12 and 13, generally sell for around $50 but bargains can sometimes be found. The rarer crew patches will usually sell for hundreds of dollars. For example, a Grumman Apollo 10 patch will typically sell for upwards of $200, an Apollo 11 crew patch for maybe $300 to $500, and an Apollo 1 crew patch in the $500 to $1000 range. The rarest crew patches include the Apollo 7 crew patch and those of the Gemini missions. At open auction one of these patches will probably sell in the $750 to $1500 range.

On the page for each mission I've tried to give an estimate of value where possible and example of recent prices fetched where available.

No embroidered mission patches were produced or used at the time of the Mercury missions. All the patches you see today were created after the fact and so cannot be considered crew patches by any stretch of the imagination.