History of OA Lodge Totem Pins
At the recent Pittsburgh TOR we hooked up with Virginia-based collector John Ortt. John brought his collection of lodge totem pins. This is a specialty collecting area because of their rarity. John provides some background (information about the first OA jeweler Hood starting in 1920 with these through the merger with Caldwell Jewelers in 1945 and their stopping production in 1973.) John points out that a challenge in this collecting area is we don’t know what we don’t know, i.e., who issued what when?
Previously we’ve written about the museum display at the National Order of the Arrow Conferences where collector Bill Topkis has displayed his lodge jewelry collection, the best in the country, with over 200 pieces. We figure John’s collection here is in the top 5 with around 30 pieces. For OA collectors to have more than 2 or 3 pieces is very rare.
Postscript – The opportunity for education, sharing and fellowship is one of the great aspects of trade-o-rees. If you have a chance to visit one, we recommend that you do so. The video has a fair amount of hub-bub from the TOR even though we were off to the side but things were so busy.
Here’s something not in the video – a close-up of the order form John has in his collection.
on March 23rd, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Nice grouping, very informative. I’ve seen a few of these over the years.
on March 23rd, 2011 at 5:08 pm
Dave,
That actually presents one of the challenges of these. One is lucky just to see them, even every few years. Also, its a problem with several of the collecting areas in our hobby. These are so rare, and we’ve flooded the hobby with so many fluff patches, that collectors don’t know and thus haven’t developed the appreciation for true pieces of our history. Glad you liked the video. We, the hobby, need to do more of these.
Roy
on March 23rd, 2011 at 5:45 pm
Thanks guys!!!! Very informative!!!
on March 5th, 2018 at 8:07 am
FYI,there is a OA lodge pin by hood up for auction on eBay in a group with other BSA metals.