My name is Richard (Rick) Miller.  I am a retired United States Army Military Police Investigator with 20 years of Federal Law Enforcement experience.  The Viet Nam conflict started my career and I was allowed to retire at the end of Desert Storm.  Military Police seem to be sent to all the "Hot Spots", so my tour of duty was full of exciting events like the tearing down of the Berlin Wall.

In February 1981, I was stationed at Fort Hood, Texas.  The lobby of the Military Police Station had a huge wall map which featured the post and surrounding counties.  I developed an idea to collect police shoulder patches from all 21 agencies that we worked with using the patches to show the location of those agencies.  As I visited the local police, sheriff and federal agencies asking for a patch, they would give me one for the display and frequently offer other law enforcement patches that had been sent to them.  Quickly, my search for 21 shoulder patches turned into 350 patches and 11 badges!  My collecting efforts were sparked by the extra items and my private collection started.   Now in 2010, I am still collecting police related items.   The collection has taken over my Living Room and is spreading like cancer into other areas of our house.  Last count, I have amassed over 47,500 patches and badges from around the World!

Several years ago, a good friend, knowing about my patch and badge collection gave me a pair of Road Champs police vehicles as a joke.  Now, my police vehicle collection has over 1100 die-cast metal police cars.  These police vehicles are exact copies of the real vehicles currently being used on the streets and highways today.

You might ask how I have been able to obtain so many law enforcement patches and badges?   I have written police departments, traded patches with other officers, purchased some and attended Police Patch Shows where fellow collectors swap patches, badges and war stories.   Patch Collectors are very careful who we deal with.  90% of the collectors are directly related to law enforcement.  Attendance is open to the public, but most people who do attend are related to law enforcement in some way.  Most of us have known each other for years and when someone new attends a show, he or she is carefully checked out before selling or trading them items.   If a person is not known by us (fellow collectors) they won't be able to purchase or trade for a badge.  There are people try to impersonate police officers and these patch shows would be a great shopping center for them, but we do our best to control who is admitted. 

In 1983, I was transferred to Frankfurt Germany and my collecting efforts turned to Foreign Police Insignia.  Patch collecting was not as widespread as it was in the USA, but they were interested in obtaining patches from Major US Cities.  During our vacations in Europe, I always took along a bag of trader patches and would stop at police stations found along the trip.  I might not have been able to speak the local language, but with a little sign language and showing them my bag of patches, I was able to get my point across. One officer went into a back room and traded a uniform shirt for a patch.  In 1985, I hosted the first ever patch show held in the Polizei (Police) Headquarters in Frankfurt.  With the assistance of a Polizei Sergeant, we managed to send information about the show to France, Spain, Holland, Austria and Switzerland.  53 officers attended that first show and it became an annual event, even after I returned to the states.  That one show added 153 patches to my collection.  One of the most usual items I was able to collect in Frankfurt was a Blue Light and Electronic Siren assembly from the top of a Polizei Cruiser.  I had told a Polizei Sergeant that I was interested in a Blue Light for my collection and a few days later he called me over to the Polizei Garage.  He pointed to a large cardboard box and told me it was my Blue Light.  When I looked inside the box, I found the complete system.  Then, he pointed to a wrecked Polizei cruiser and explained a drunk driver had crashed into it.   It was the only thing to survive the accident.   The driver and officers were all killed.

My collecting efforts are still going strong today and hopefully through this site I can make some new connections.  I would be happy to answer any question you might have about patch collection.  Please also use the links within this site to take a look at the patches I have offered for sale on the eBay Auction site.