How to Cash In on Rare Coins

Just as I blogged earlier that we may never know what all was issued for the 2010 Jamboree, I am thinking there is a corollary. If you don’t get these now, will you ever be able to get them? Right now is the best availability of these. Prior to the Jamboree, eBay had around 74,000 items in the Boy Scouts category. Actually it had dropped as low as 64,000 in late July. Now it is over 81,000 after getting as high as 84,000. We were partly to blame for this bump.

In our trading we also picked some older JSPs but not many. Most of what we got were from 2005 but we even got some back to 1997. The older JSPs turn up from time to time but very few collections are coming out. Thus, if you are trying to fill in older issues you might find some local ones at local TORs or have to do an awful lot of searching on eBay and dealer sales lists for a long time.

I can tell you this is true about Jamboree neckerchiefs too. I have been picking them up for a few years now. I am more likely to find older, pre-1973, neckerchiefs than I am newer ones. The problem is the same as with modern JSPs. They are dispersed amongst 32,000 participants and are sitting in their closets/attics/basement. There they’ll sit for a generation or two.

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Earlier I blogged about how poor a design we got form the Post Office for the 100th anniversary of Scouting. I didn’t think they could be any worse but I was wrong. I bought some of the stamps the other day. Here’s the write-up on the back:

Since the creation of the international youth scouting movement some 100 years ago, hunreds of millions of children have benefitted from ooportunities for adventure, skill building, leadership, personal development, and community service provided by scouting organizations.

Normally I see “scouting” capitalized when we’re talking about the movement. It is the 100th anniversary of the Boy Scouts of America. The organization that helped with raising 100s of billions of dollars (in today’s dollars) of war bonds during WWI, providing food and supplies during WWII, providing the most service hours of any organization during the recent volunteer campaigns. The political correctness crowd has taken over the US Post Office. What a shame. Maybe we should not be surprised they’re a failing organization.

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One of the nights at the Jamboree TOR Bob Salcido of California and I were comparing patches. Some of the JSPs are hard to separate from CSPs. We were looking at a pair of Minsi Trails patches and concluded they were CSPs for the 100th anniversary and not JSPs. Upon closer inspection, we noticed that we had different troops. Over the next week I looked for them and came up with four. Talking with Bob later he said he ran into their Exec and the Exec said he was not aware of these. Does anyone know any more specifics? Is this a new trend?

Here are the four I found (Bob’s was one of these troops):

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Starting two Jamborees ago, Jere Ratcliff as Chief Scout Executive (CSE), maybe it was Roy Williams, began handing out a patch to Scouts attending the Jamboree that he met. This year Bob Mazucca continued the new tradition with his own CSE patch:

Chief Scout Executive Jambo 2010 patch - front

Handing these patches out to Scouts is a nice touch by the Chief.

Until I turned it over…:

Boy Scouts of America CSE - Made in China

Now I posted last spring about the BSA being at best being insensitive, at worst being out right dumb, by having certain patches relating to the American labor movement made in China. Somehow I’m feeling that this is worse because it indicates our leadership does not get it. The comments are the same; he’s either being insensitive at best or dumb at worst. Now I hope our Chief is too busy to be designing and ordering patches but it means he is not being served well either by the Supply Division or by his assistant (who gets his own badge). But neither did he catch it.  He could at least have had his staff take the sticker off to make it less obvious. But no… they couldn’t even do that much. What message are they sending to our Scouts? What message are they Sending to our volunteers? Has he not looked at unemployment levels by age group (it is much worse for those under 30)?

The number I am hearing is that the Scouts need to raise $175 million to build the new jamboree site, more on that in another blog. How much are they asking for from China? Why should any American employee support Scouting? This patch is bad for our brand. It is bad for our leadership. Same conclusion as before - some heads must roll.

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First event where I’ve really seen patches using a new process called ‘dye sublimation’. These first surfaced a few years back at the World Jamboree I believe and I’ve seen some Michael Feigenbaum designed. He said he worked with manufacturers in Asia on the process.

The Merit Badge Midway staff patches have a dye sub center. Here’s a picture of the San Francisco Bay Area Council JSPs:

I don’t know if we’ll call these ’twills’ or a new category. What do you think?

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Destry was recently back home in southern Illinois visiting with family and friends and doing some patch digging. Among the things he picked up was an original printing of the prices realized from the sale of the Don Dennison Order of the Arrow collection in 1970. Don was the sponsor/organizer of the Amaquansippi Trail and Trade-o-rees back during that time period. This trail and the TOR brought folks in from multiple states away. It was one of the most popular trails in the area and their patches are still actively collected.

I scanned in the print-out. See the PDF in the following link:

Prices Realized from sale of Don Dennison OA collection 1970

This was pre-Blue Book, as most of today’s collectors know the Blue Book, and pre-Arapaho. Actually there was a Blue Book that Dave Leubitz sold around that time. It contained lodge names and numbers and the types of issues they issued but no detail and nothing on sequence (although the way the shapes were listed implied the issue sequence as we knew it at the time.) Thus in the listing, you don’t see ‘F1 first flap’ but you do see F c/e (cut-edge) with a border color and background color that allows you to infer the issue.

There were very few patches that sold over $100. Some were:

The lodge 8 Unilachtigo solid round fake at $117.76. Go figure. Its around $25 today. A 47 Hanigus R3 was the most expensive at $150. More than the 155 R ($110), the 177 Victorio F1 at $46.77 (remember this was only a 6 year old patch at the time). A 448 Wapagoklos with a needlebreak sold for $137.50 and a 526 Nahak sold for $126.

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Due to picking up the Clay estate and subsequent car problems I missed this year’s BSA National Meeting.  Well I’m getting reports back and the one that pops up for patch collectors is that we’re going to three (3) regions down from four. Not sure when and not sure the structure. I’m sure we’ll get filled in soon enough. One may probably want to put away some of the region patches but not too many. This isn’t the hottest area of collecting.

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At the recent Pittsburgh TOR I was going through Joe Klos’s merit badge collection. Joe has a very extensive collection and is passionate about this area of the hobby. Flipping through the recent issues I did a double take. I saw something that was not supposed to exist. Joe was with Ron Oslin who also collects merit badges. After seeing the patch in Joe’s collection, I asked Ron if he had it. He did. See the two patches below.

BSA merit badge Made in China

Now what is wrong with this you might ask? Most of the current BSA merit badges are made in China. Lets look at the front:

This is the American Labor merit badge. It recognizes the contribution of the American labor movement to this country. The Boy Scouts of America are having this patch from China! This is BS (I want this to be a non-R rated blog but it is VERY HARD with this one not to get very coarse.) I am not a “union man” but I respect their impact on this country and to Scouting. Is the BSA asking China for financial contributions? For volunteer leadership? For help in building our camps? The BSA can’t excuse this away as being a fluke. This was two separate collections from two different areas.

What adds insult to injury is that I forewarned the BSA in 2007. In my position in Scouting and as a member of the National Council I am allowed to submit resolutions. I actually submitted the resolution which first runs through my council and then through the Central Region. I received a timely and nice set of exchanges with the then Region Executive Brad Farmer. He checked with the Supply Division and said they were on top of this. Wanting to be a team player and since it had gotten the attention of leadership I withdrew my resolution for submission at the upcoming national meeting.

Well Brad’s been promoted. I don’t fully fault him as this is not his area. It was clear I could have gone ahead with my resolution but I did not want to make waves where they were supposedly not needed. Wrong. I hope this does not get picked up by those who want to attack the BSA. Head(s) should roll on this. This is a slap in the face of all of the American labor supporters of Scouting. I wonder if they have added a new merit badge requirement: “Describe how your job will be shipped overseas? Describe how to sign-up for unemployement. Describe how to get food stamps and get aid from food banks.” Maybe we need to out-source the Supply Division. They can not be any dumber.

If someone knows the union representatives to the BSA Relationships Committee, please pass this on to them. This needs to create some pain in our organization if we are to improve. What did Forrest Gump say? “Stupid is as stupid does.”

Where is the George Meaney Award now made? The knot? The Whitney Young Award and knot? The American Flag patches on our sleeves? If you find any with “Made in China” stickers, please let me know.

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One of the fun things about this hobby is that there are surprises even after four decades of collecting. A new one on me was a recent eBay offering. Someone had taken some lodge and conclave neckerchiefs and made them into a blanket. I’ve seen this done before many times. But… someone cut up the blanket and made the pieces into hot pads! Now that’s different.

So, when you think you’ve seen it all, you probably haven’t. Any out there want a bunch of Scout neckerchiefs to start the newest collecting craze - Boy Scout oven pads? Its going to be hot! (Ouch.)

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