Fred and I are in agreement on the train/plane buttons possible history. I think (can't remember for sure?) that I projected this idea earlier in a newsletter and maybe on this forum our conductor theory on the train and plane buttons. The train might have been the old Zephyr type that ran between Chicago and Denver. There's an older looking train button too.
Also Glover Alex Brenner has run a dating pattern on the Reach and Spalding patches, near approximating their dates of use. I have some of these photocopied and will send them out to anyone interested.
Veteran Glover Doug Wolk has been a long-time collector of the different patches and this can be a fascinating area of the hobby. Glover Mark Walters has a nice dating pattern of the Rawings patches. As long as I've been associated with Nocona, you'd think I could put together someting on Nocona's patch dating.
It was a common practice to put the patches on the top-level gloves rather than the low end.
Another interesting aspect of the hobby would be to see how many different types of glove buckles (small, big, reverse, etc.) one could assemble.
I know this Dave Cunningham's new book on the glove webs will be essential to that part of the hobby. Order information will be in the latest newsletter which will start hitting the day and week after Christmas.