A realtor friend of mine once said she was told, when asked “How is the real estate market?” to answer “Unbelievable.” It could be unbelievably good. Or, it could be unbelievably bad!

This thought comes to mind based upon conversations I’ve recently had with senior collectors and dealers. This may be heresy as a patch dealer but here goes – We may have passed the point where councils and lodges are making more patches than our wallets can afford. I mark it as possible heresy as a dealer and market maker some think we should always be upbeat and optimistic. We are. When we’re talking about true collectibles.  But much of what is coming out now feels more like Beanie Babies than collectibles.

Ask yourself – how many of the new CSPs ever get put on a uniform? Or the new NOAC issues coming out? Even the delegate issues aren’t going on shirts because they’re “valuable.” To whom? If you “only” made 50, 2/ delegate member, if their aren’t 50 collectors who care then there’s more supply than demand. Not a healthy thing.

There will be a lot of fun in trading these new patches. That’s great for now and in the future. Some of these patches may maintain their interest and demand but history indicates otherwise. A recent anecdote was a contact from a Scout, now Scouter, that had a set of the 2005 Marin Yoda JSPs. We told them they may be worth $5 to $10 each. He was shocked! He thought the set should be worth at least $200 since they were bringing $100 right after that Jamboree. We told him that would have been the best time to have sold them. We were probably being optimistic in our estimate.

Where does this lead? We spend a fair amount of time discussing this amongst our team. We think it means true rare issues that fit main collecting themes such as First Flaps, WAB issues, First Issues, etc.. go up as people drop off of collecting everything even for their state. It means that secondary issues and especially manufactured issues will decline in value especially after folks have filled them in. It also means that some of these pieces will maintain and maybe even increase their value over time due to true scarcity and demand in the lodge or area.  But it also means most are worthless about month after the event.

Update: After writing this, I remembered another big example. At the 1985 National Jamboree enamel/cloissone hat pins were all the rage. Where are they now? We have to price them at a certain point just for the shipping/packaging but they’re only collected for local interest. Now as a counter-point, think of OA Caldwell pins. In 1985 they could be acquired for $100 – $200. Now they often go for 10 times that, if they can be found!

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