A friend just forwarded a link from eBay of the sale of a khaki and red strip for Grand Teton Council. After looking at it, my first thought was “Give me a f’ing break.”

The description says “This Auction is for a Grand Teton Council Thank You patch. Old School Khaki and Red Full Strip”

Now I don’t know what a “Thank You patch” is. I’m not sure what is meant by “Old School”, but khaki and red strips (KRS) were discontinued in 1953. He also has a red and white strip like this up that he also calls “Old School”.

More importantly, this council did not come into existence until 1993 as a result of a merger with Tendoy Area Council and Teton Peaks. Further, one can’t tell if this was issued by the council or not. As for “Thank you”, I’d certainly say that to anyone who would pay me $49.99, what he’s asking, for a patch that cost $1 to make.

Time to move on, and not bid….

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At one level, patches coming out of Hong Kong or Taiwan could be real issues but certainly not this one. It was put up by seller: 1414yin

Its title:

Very Small OA Lodge Twin Pine Boy Scout Patch

Well parts of it are true. It is very small, 1 inch by 2 inches. It is a patch. It says “Twin Pine” which if you were from Detroit area in the 1960s was a major local dairy but is not the name of a Boy Scout council. But it is not “OA Lodge” nor “Boy Scout.”

The seller has many other badges for sale in their store. Most are non-USA so maybe they are real but one has to wonder.

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Coming from “patch–world” of Lingen, Germany on eBay we now have fakes of camp patches. This one is for the Transatlantic Council Camp Mohawk, their summer camp based in England, for 1957. Design is close but not close enough. Of course the description makes no mention that this was recently made, not 50 years ago.

We’re having trouble keeping up with all of the fakes coming out. We’re posting more of this guy’s fakes. No where in the titles of any of these does he indicate they are fakes or re-makes or private issues.

These include the 2000 Philmont staff arrowhead, 1953 National Jamboree jacket patch, region8 patch, 428 R1, 383 Tahosa dance team patch, 146 Tichora event first flap. The list is long and dubious.

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Man, this is becoming the fake report. Another day, another one to report and this one even more egregious.

eBay seller PITTKING describes this as:

oa 36 mitigwa RARE

this patch is the lodge before the neche lodge and is mint and very rare

The lodge has no known real issues. If it did, they certainly wouldn’t be from overseas embroidery as the lodge went out in 1950. This is a hoax. A misrepresentation. Its currently bid to $36. If this were what the seller purported it to be it would be 100 times that. The problem is, its not represented as a fake, and it probably cost $1 – $3 to make. At such a profit, these kinds of scams will keep going on. What does it do to the hobby when the buyer of such an item finds out later it is a fake? That won’t be good.

Actually one could argue this is a fake of a fake as it is a twill version of a solid fake shown on John’s oaimages.com site.

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A quick heads up – from a seller on eBay, out of Spain of all places, is offering up the following patch from old New York lodge 500 – Ona Yote Kaonaga (proper spacing for the lodge name):

Click on the image to get an expanded look. It is not the original, which can be seen on the OA Images site.

Notice that the original is on twill right rough (TRR) as well as swiss-style embroidery. The seller of the fake, pwaitor29, titles his listing:

O NA YOTE KA O NAGA LODGE 500 SCOUT PATCH

No where does he mention its a modern patch or a fake. Buyer beware. This is not good for the hobby.

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Seller Wishingtree07 has popped up on eBay with many brand new fakes of Scout patches, mostly OA. Here’s a PDF of his offerings.

New ‘Faker’ out of Malaysia on eBay

His descriptions do mention that they are brand new patches and have a heat seal back. Frankly, not sure how he chose the designs to make. For some, the original issue is cheaper than what he’s charging for the fake. You make your own decision as to whether to buy or not, although if you don’t buy then there will be fewer offered in the future.

Update 4/22/08 – More to this story – now seeing these items under a new seller id: YCPATCH as well. I went back and Wishingtree07 is still listing but NONE of their Boy Scout fakes have sold over the past two weeks. That’s a sure way to get this to end. These guys are paying less than $1 a patch. They are hoping for unsuspecting buyers. That hurts us all if they pull it off.

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An eBay seller out of Malaysia has surface with some red and white and khaki and red strips that are modern, over-seas manufacture. Here’s one:

That he titled “IMPERIAL YUMA COUNCIL STRIP RARE”. Its a buyer beware world on eBay. I still liken it to the wild, wild west. Ebay has limited ability to police this so know your seller!!!!

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Every time this pops up on eBay we get asked if this is an OA pin. No. This is not an OA pin. It is not a Vigil pin. It is a YMCA pin. And, they are extremely common (and this picture, from a current listing, is upside down as to how the pin was worn.)

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As Jeff Cook reports in the patchblanket.com blog – there is a whole store for fake patches out of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

There’s really no rhyme nor reason to what this faker has chosen. Some of the real patches sell for less than what he’s asking for his fakes. Go figure. Still, they’re now in the collecting stream. We’re working on a way to fix this for the high end collectibles in our hobby.

The fakes are dominated by OA but not solely as he’s got some fake CSPs (again not sure why he chose to pick the ones he did.) One way to control this is to not buy but his profits are so large that he does not need many to sell to make a profit.

Thanks to Jeff and Jason from the patchblanket.com

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