OA Lodge 241 Tomahawk R1 first issue
Now here’s a ‘sit up straight patch’ – the first issue from lodge 241 out of Kentucky. This is the kind of patch that the big time collectors of thirty years ago (think Marv Gershenfeld, Hal Rudd, John Sell) would sit up straight if it showed up in someone’s hands. I’ve handled only one others of these and that was fifteen years ago when it sold at that time for $4,000. Besides being a first issue of an old name lodge, you need to understand where this came from. This is coal mine, appalachian-poor country territory. People there, in general, did not have extra money for Scout patches. Further, people have tried to dig for this or the first flap and you just can’t find these people. They are spread out. There are no major towns and those who could afford to leave have left. This patch is probably a late 1940s era item. I’m estimating that the R2, a twill patch, is early 1950s. There are probably 4 or 5 of these R1s in collections.
on January 1st, 2006 at 2:21 pm
Roy is quite right – this is one of the truly scarce classic OA badges – often not given much credit as such since it originated from eastern Kentucky. When I went diggin’ 25 yrs ago for these… I literally drove from town-to-town and lead-to-lead… finding these folks (not to mention the patches) is a tough task. When you did find an old Tomahawk member, it was a real joy to talk to them – great people!
This badge was issued late 1940’s to at least 1950, as I have the membership card with mine that dates the person’s ordeal at 1950. The R2 – much, much more common – was likely around from early 1950’s to around 1957, and probably overlapped the issuance of the F1 circa 1956-57. These badges continued to be used through the late 1950’s, despite the name change, as there simply weren’t enough membership turnover to reorder a badge with the new name until these ran out – probably in 1961 or so.
Thanks, James Flatt