A useful site – www.priceofeverything.com
Just got a call in from Dr. Blake Keasey. We sat in on one of the ISCA Conference sessions at the Dallas trade-o-ree put on by Steve Austin and Dr. Tom Jones on CSPs. Steve had a number of really good patches with him including an Illiana S1. This is the only issue for this council and was used for a short time after Arrowhead and Piankeshaw merged. The council hadn’t chosen a name so they used that name as an interim before they became Prairielands.
This is a long intro but Blake in seeing the patch realized he did not have it in his First Issue CSP collection. Well, one’s turned up on eBay but he was wondering what its worth. I flipped over to this neat web-site – priceofeverything.com 
and entered Illiana and foung out they’ve sold from $80 – $155. Now Blake’s got a range to work with.
Random musings while entering away
We’re preparing our current offerings. It is the remainders from a very large collection – over 3,000 patches. It struck me that we will have sold over 20,000 patches this year. That’s one heck of a lot of patches. (One sale of 1,000 patches to one person never went public.) We’ve handled two different OA number collections – not complete but both were very deep.
Air Scout Squadron Site
We always enjoy finding out about interesting Scouting memorabilia sites. I was just talking with an alum of an active Air Scout squadron out of Van Nuys, California. The site’s got some great history and great photos as well as an emblem page (which we’re helping them with). Here’s the site:
On the photo page, picture 6 and 7 in Scrapbook 1 show an instructor teaching young men. Its the same instructor who’s been teaching since the 1950s. That’s the kind of special person that’s made Scouting such a noteworthy experience in so many boys, and now mens’, lives.
Ebay Information Site
EBay seems to be the principle place for finding Scouting patches these days so I found the following site about eBay problems interesting:
Take a gander.
Over 50,000 OA issues and counting
I was talking with Bill Topkis yesterday about our new eMember initiative for ISCA and we got on to the subject of OA trends. We were both comiserating over the fact that by the end of NOAC our needs list will be longer than it is now, regardless of how many issues we pick-up. Bill mentioned that John Pannell who only collects images and thus does not have the financial challenges as collecting the actual patches has said he is losing ground.
Bill also reported that with the upcoming edition of Blue Book it will document over 50,000 issues. This is nearly a doubling of the issues in the prior edition. Much of this growth is due to greater documentation of chapter and event items as well as regular lodge pieces but still…. The last issue of Blue Book had chapter and event items covered as well. The days of collecting it all are gone.
eBay Fraud Advice
I get various newsletters on auction selling. The following is a recent excerpt from THE AUCTION SELLER’s RESOURCE that is particularly relevant in light of a recent situation on eBay. During the past month a seller, ‘pewpepele’, from the Netherlands was using pictures from other auctions. I talked with my eBay support person and Safe Harbor. They closed down some auctions before completion although frustratingly not all until the auctions closed and then they booted the guy.
Hope you find the following advice helpful.
Also, thanks need to go to Paul Munscher (and others) for their information in this matter.
Regards,
Roy More
TSPA
FRAUD ALERT ~ FRAUDSTERS REGISTERING EBAY ACCOUNTS OVERSEAS TO SCAM EBAY US USERS
As I was working on this newsletter my phone rang and it was one of my readers calling from New York asking for help. He purchased a laptop on eBay, sent the payment via PayPal and never heard from the seller again. I looked at the auction and saw that a) the seller had Zero feedback, and b) the seller was just suspended by eBay.
When I was in New York for the eBay Elite meeting, I had a side conversation with several sellers on the topic of fraud. EBay goes to great pains to verify accounts and identities here in the US. Although not perfect, in fact fraud is a tiny percentage of eBay transactions and much smaller in the US than overseas. It turns out that you can register an account on one of eBay’s overseas sites, with far less checking. In some countries eBay doesn’t even require a credit card to register. The scam artists have figured this out and are using it to their advantage.
How can you protect yourself. First of all don’t buy anything expensive from a brand new registered user or some with very low feedback. Just because someone is a new seller doesn’t mean they are a crook, but brand new sellers rarely start selling very expensive items such as computers, digital cameras, and PDAs. An exception to this is eBay motors where new sellers sell cars all the time.
Pay with a credit card. If you pay through PayPal, be sure to fund the transaction with your credit card on file, not an e-check or cash in your account. Credit card companies will reverse the transaction if it is fraudulent. One of the best in this regard in Citibank, although Wells Fargo and others are pretty good about internet refunds as well.
Lastly if sending a large amount of money to another PayPal user, make sure the person is a “verified user.” This is someone who has had their bank account verified by PayPal. You must deal with a verified user if you want to be covered by PayPal’s buyer protection program.
Boy Scout Lantern Slides
Roger Schustereit forwarded a worthwhile link of Scouting lantern slides. These were from the era of silent movies. The display was under a web-site on West Texas history. Very neat! The shirts of the Scouts going over the Handbook are REALLY impressive.
More Basement Finds – 1989 NJ Special Order Prices
The never ending clean-up project continues. Today’s find included a Special Order form (i.e., non-stock items) for the 1989 BSA National Jamboree. I ordered the framed large embroidered patch of the jambo logo. These items are probably pretty rare as they were not mass produced but only available through advance payment and delivery after the jamboree.
Large Embroidery $125
Jefferson Cup $18
Executive Cup $38
Case of Jamboree Mugs (36 pieces) $135
Pen and Key Holder $25
Pen and Clip Knife $28
Lead Crystal Box $30
Vase (10″) $10.50
Carafe $9.75
Paperweight $25
Crystal Coffee Mug $7.50
Lucite Embedment $20
Plaque $25
Deluxe Belt Buckle $18.50