Neat Camp Tom Wooten site

Posted on December 28th, 2013 in Camps,Hobby Trends by ramore

Just this past week I was discussing with a senior collector about the struggles in the hobby right now with knowledge. We are creating so many items that its hard to keep up with what’s newly issued and as a result the older, seldom seen items get missed or forgotten. Ultimately the solution is better education and education tools.

Against that is technology is giving us better tools to record and share information than ever before. This thought comes to mind as I was responding to a share of an eBay auction for an old Camp Tom Wooten felt camp patch.

The title says it was from the 1930s. To me it didn’t quite have that “feel” as I have patches with this design in my collection that are dated in the 1940s. Well, a person quickly was able share a web-site link that showed the historical Camp Tom Wooten patches. Very neat! Very useful. There are a lot of these out there but what we need to do is figure out how to integrate them all.

In the OA Blue Book web-site, collectors can now record the history of patches in the comment fields for any issue. We could never do that before and it only works with an on-line database. (and there has to be in the design for folks to comment back either to add to the information or correct a mis-statement). We need to do more of this.

A few years back I created the ScoutPatchWiki. Folks from around the world were putting reference information in. But, it got massively hacked by foreign spammers and had to take it down. I still have the data and it looks like the software has increased its security so maybe that will be part of the new year’s resolutions is to resurrect this site.

 

Sometimes the lowest are the rarest – Scout Position Badge edition

Posted on December 10th, 2013 in Adult Position Badges,Hobby Trends,Insignia by ramore

Some of our scarcest insignia pieces are for the lowest offices. What brings this to mind are a couple of  collar pins we have up for auction. They are so obscure that we had to look one of them up, using Scouting History Through Memorabilia, to be sure we had them titled correctly.

They are for Council Employee and Layman:

Why are they obscure? Because most of the folks holding these positions did not wear uniforms (think now, how many of your council office staff or Scout Shop employees wear uniforms? How many of your Pack Committee or Troop Committee wear uniforms?)

Now when identifying pins, and the corresponding badges there are some basics to remember. Red = professional position and blue = volunteer, except when they’re green for troop leaders. So that starts to give one a clue. The next thing to look for is to remember that  commissioned positions have a wreath behind them. Commissioners are “commissioned.” Scout field staff are commissioned. Council officers and above take an oath of office so you will see a wreath behind their badges. Since neither of these pins had a wreath, we knew they were the lower positions.

We see Council Employee pins from time to time, although cloth badges much less so unless they were say certain camp staff positions. Layman pins very rarely turn up unless in collections. Some of the cloth badges from the 1920s-1930s on square khaki cloth are quite obscure and rare.

This is the more common Layman patch from the 1940s and it is still harder to find than many Council positions of that era:

A couple of California patches of interest

Posted on December 10th, 2013 in Camps,Hobby Trends by ramore

My team has handled a LOT of patches over the years so I always enjoy seeing new mainline collectibles I’ve not seen before such as this council patch. Not sure the value (min bid is $300 with a buy-it-now of $400) but the seller is a VERY knowledgeable CA collector so he probably has a good feel for it. (P.S. I call it “mainline” as it is a collecting theme that has been around for decades. Now I’ve also been saying that CP/council patch collecting is WAY over due for an update to its collector list. Someone? Anyone? up to it? It will be fun, but a lot of work.)

From the seller’s description:

This is an old rare council patch (CP) which was worn on the Scout jacket as a jacket patch.  The patch was issued by the old Tahoe Area Council, Boy Scouts of America, headquartered in Auburn, California (now part of Golden Empire Council).  The patch is silk screen on light canvas and is 6 1/2 inches across and 4 1/2 inches high.

And I mentioned ‘patches’ – here’s a nice price realized for a felt Camp Pahatsi, again Tahoe Area Council, that closed at $177.51

Used but in nice shape, seller says its from the 1940s which seems about right. As I’ve said before not every, actually most, felt camp patch is worth $100 but many are given their scarcity and demand.

 


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