One of the neat aspects of the Calumet Council Memorial Day trade-o-ree is their display section. TOR organizers Jim Scherbarth and Swoop Dellamano arrange for special displays each year from area collectors. Bob Cylkowski provided a display of some of his Far East Council memorabilia. It is probably the most complete collection of these items in the country. I’ve seen some of these patches before but not all of them Further, Bob knows more about the history of these patches than most so we interviewed him so the rest of the hobby can have this information.

Bob also brought his Region 13 patch collection for display. Region 13 was never an official BSA designation for a region which makes it somewhat notorious 🙂 in collecting circles. The symbol in the center showing “13” on top of a group of “C”s translates into “Region 13 across the seven seas.” Pretty punny.

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At the recent Calumet Council trade-o-ree a collector showed me a fascinating piece from his collection – a rolled-edge version of the 307 Karankawa W1. He’s had the item in his collection for decades. It came from a collector out of west central Illinois in the late 1960s. What brought this to mind was his seeing on eBay recently a 300 Peta W1 also with a rolled edge.

Long-time Texas collector John Bibo was also at the TOR. We both concluded it is a real Apache-style border. Apache was the patch manufacturer. Most of their wovens came out in the 1959-1961 era. During that period Scouting was looking at ways to save money on patch costs and used them for a while. They made about 15 OA flaps or patches, about the same number of council patches, and many council activity and camp patches during this time. Very few though had rolled edges. The most noteworthy are what we call proto-types, most likely promotional samples, of the 1960 50th anniversary of the BSA patches for Camporee, Field Day, and Cub-o-ree.

Here’s the picture of the 307:

Some of Apache made lodge flaps had rolled edges but most did not. If anyone has more information, please post it.

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What a busy weekend. Our eBay feedback rating is over 31,000.

Last Friday our eBay feedback rating was at 8,223.

Actually, what must have occurred is that eBay changed their algorithm. We have a LOT of repeat buyers. The old eBay system did not take this into account. eBay realized that this was wrong. They are trying to create a better buying experience. One result is to encourage buying from sellers that perform. One of the best indicators of performance is repeat buying. Actually, because many of you buy multiple items from us at a time, this rating understates our overall positive feedbacks of over 61,000. Even this understates the number of eBay transactions we’ve done over the years, well over 100,000 items sold, as many do not leave feedback or only leave it on a single item in a group of purchases.

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