Needing to vent here. I would have thought these would have gone out of fashion. Maybe they have but we deal with vintage patches. But ghost patches are a real pain for my getting older eyes. IFFFF you read closely you can read that is is from Amangamek Wipit 470 but white on white does not make it easy. Why’d we ever get into this in the first place? (Actually, the answer to this question is that Mike Welsh of Welsh Industries came up with a patch marketing idea with the birth of a white buffalo in August, 1994 which has some symbolic significance to certain native American tribes.)

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In the category of ‘things forgotten but now remembered’, we recently handled a proof edition of the Scoutmaster handbook. A question from a collector got us digging into our reference shelves as there are actually four variations of the “PROOF” edition. The editions range from 203 pages, this one circa 1912, two versions with 161 pages and the final proof edition with 344 pages from March, 1913. The quantity made of the first three are unknown.

The reference book of choice is Chuck Fisk and Doug Bearce’s Collecting Scouting Literature/2nd edition published in 1990. And thus the ‘things forgotten’ observation – this book is 2o years old and yet its still the best, and most accessible out there but most current collectors do not know of this book. Not sure the solution to this problem – how do we keep these books up to date and let folks know about them.

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The Board for the new council here in Michigan approved at its first meeting new Field Service Council (FSC) boundaries. FSCs are a new concept in the Scouting structure that we’re developing. Although there is one legal entity there are at this time four (4) local delivery entities who’s primary purpose is unit support. The Coordinating Council, also sometimes referred to as the “Administrative Council”, integrates back office functions and achieves economies of scale that we could not achieve as individual councils. Basically we have been silos working within our boundaries. One of the goals of the Crossroads Recommendation is to not compete with each other but compete  to bring more youth to Scouting.

Here’s the new boundaries approved at the meeting. When will these be effective? Soon but still being worked out.

Note – the boundaries between FSCs is dotted. These will flex over time depending upon who can best serve the needs of a given unit. Within Field Service Councils we may well have additional Community Service Councils that are even more focused on unit service – MMM – membership, manpower and of course money. We’ve had discussions where our shoulder wear will change to the community level. Not as specific as red and white community strips that collectors know but more specific than council shoulder strips we’re used to seeing.

The criteria used are on this slide. The Unit Serving Executives to Total Available Youth ratio is about a third better than the current ‘gold standard’ for the national dashboard metrics in Journey to Excellence.

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Previously I’ve shared information about what is called “The Area Project”, Area Project – Designing Scouting for the 21st Century and Michigan Councils Take Next Step In Integrating,  an effort by Central Region’s Area 2 volunteers to create a new structure for Scouting. Tonight all nine (9) councils who put the recommendation to join together to their governance approved the recommendation. That is, we’ve agreed to integrate together to become one, new council. This is the first new council since the 1940s as it is not a merger of existing councils into one successor council.

I’ve shared with some recently a quote from futurist Buckminster Fuller:

You never change things by fighting the existing model.
To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.

Well we’re on this course. Tonight’s a night of celebration but when we wake up tomorrow we have to begin the implementation. The bottom-line will be bringing more youth to Scouting in Michigan.

Update: Here’s a note I just sent to a friend from outside the area:

Deal is done. Vote passed state-wide. Of votes turned in it was 9 to 1 in favor. Basically we’re creating a new structure by pealing away a lot, unfortunately not all, of the calcification that has come from the bureaucracy over the past 100 years. Scouting-sclerosis I call the disease we have. We’re competing with each other rather than growing the pie – that is more kids in Scouting rather than “We’ll fill our camp by recruiting Scouts from other councils.” That any Board would suggest this is myopic thinking at best.

Implementation is the next hurdle.

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At this year’s ISCA Dallas Trade-o-ree Terry Grove presented one of the educational sessions on his research into Eagle Scout paper – letters, certificates, membership cards and more. We worked with Terry to record the session but have been struggling with YouTube time limits. YouTube’s now authorized us to post long form videos so here’s the both parts of Terry’s session. As an aside, these educational sessions are one of the great features of the Dallas TOR. Held at the end of January, TOR sponsors and hosts Ron Aldridge and Dave Thomas make sure folks have a good time. IMHO it is THE annual national show.

2011 ISCA Meeting presentation on Eagle Scout memorabilia — Part 1

Here’s the 2nd part:

Eagle Scout memorabilia presentation at 2011 ISCA Meeting — Part 2

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Working through the collection consigned to us in August we’re going through the next step after photographing each item. Thoughts include: fun, interesting, exciting. And….drudgery. First you break it down by 100s or alpha, then into 10′s, then into individual lodges or councils or camps or…..

Several years back Bill Topkis posed this question to me as we were working up parts of his and Dr. Morley’s collection, “How many patches have you (Roy) looked at?” I didn’t have a ready answer. First thought was over 100,000. But as Bill reflected that this is way too low. That his and Jeff’s collection had over 20,000 issues plus duplicates. He figured he  had looked at several 100,000 patches over the years and patches area a hobby for him, not a business.

We’re quickly closing in on our quarter-millionth picture for listings, auction and web-site. That’s 250,000 patch pictures. That’s just from 2003. Many of those pictures are group shots. Many more patches were looked at but never pictured or weren’t in our hands.

At a jamboree or NOAC it is common to look at over 4,000 patches/day even though we have fewer councils and fewer lodges. Going through a multi-1,000 patch collection can be just an afternoon project. A good trade-o-ree can mean looking at 10,000 patches/day. This isn’t even counting eBay viewing.

The fun part with this collection is seeing so many new issues even though I’ve been on several Jamboree and NOAC staffs. The other thought that comes to mind is how well the patch armorers are doing, i.e., the patch manufacturers. We the collectors have been part of the problem as we start putting different borders on everything whether justified or not.

So back to Bill’s question-easily half-million and may well be a million plus. Its one of the reasons we were asked to take over Blue Book. Oh well…back to sorting.

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Recently on eBay there surfaced three patch blankets. This is a tale of how not to sell your Boy Scout patches. Not the eBay portion but before they got to eBay or to us.

First some history. These blankets surfaced around 1962-1963 when collector Paul Myers took this photograph of west Chicago Scouter Paul Price:

Mr. Price was an Owassippe lodge Garrision chapter member inducted in 1949. After he took the picture Paul M. lost track of Mr. Price. Paul believes Mr. Price had a brother in Phoenix. Mr. Price was not married and had no children. Paul M. remembers that Mr. Price’s stock trading items were Garrison chapter activity patches and old lodge 470 shark’s tooth odd-shape.

We bought two of the blankets and collector/dealer Frank Kern of Washington state bought the other one. Together they brought about $10,000 with our expectation to pull our needs and re-sell the rest to break even.

I talked with one of the sellers. He was very forthcoming in how they got the blankets. They attended an estate auction in southern Illinois north of St. Louis. They weren’t real knowledgeable about specific prices of Boy Scout patches but knew there was some collecting interest. Although prepared to go higher they bought the three blankets for $150. There was virtually no competition. There was a local collector interested in some box lots of more modern Boy Scout patches but not the blankets.

Now, I don’t begrudge these guys getting these blankets for this price. What was stupid was the family who had these and then used a local estate sale agent to sell them. The estate seller clearly did not know what they were doing, didn’t research it (they rarely do) and left thousands of dollars on the table which these guys handily picked up. The gentleman I talked with mentioned, “The house was auctioned for $6,000 and just one of the blankets brought almost that much money.”

So if you have Boy Scout patches you’re wanting to sell but aren’t sure what you have, get educated. Get advice, from us or other dealers. We’ll give you the truth. Sometimes its that the Region 10 patch that you were offered $100 for in 1969 won’t bring $20 today but more likely that you’ve got more value than you realize. We field these kinds of calls and e-mails all the time. Digital pictures work very well and if we need more clarification we’ll let you know and then advise on ways to sell.

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That was the question I received from collector friend Roger Schustereit of Texas who is helping out another friend that inherited a collection in 1998. As Roger asked:

I am sending this at the request of my friend, XX.  XX is the person who gave me the information on the origin of the 307 R3 I wrote the article on way back when.  It was his home that had the fire that left the patches smoke damaged &, when cleaned, the blue was not color fast.

Anyway, XX is now selling some Scout items on eBay (Akcent).  He wants to be fair to Uncle Sugar for tax purposes.  He inherited the items in 1998 & would like to know a general percentage Scout items have increased or decreased in value since 1998.  I had no idea, but I thought of you immediately.  If you can’t help, no one can.  I know you like a good challenge, so here is a great one.  Will appreciate any help you might offer.

Probably hoping for a simple answer all I could say was no such luck. It depends upon what one has.  Here’s my first response:

But it matters what he has. If he’s got Scout mugs – that’s 100% decline in value. Same for modern handbooks. If he’s got early 1950s OA, good stuff is up, common stuff is down. If its 70′s era OA, its flat to down. If its insignia, its flat to up. If its camp patches, its up to really up. If its CSPs its generally down but red&white community strips are up by a factor of 10 to 20 times higher. …..

Depends upon the area. I know I may be over analyzing but if he’s going to use my observation for tax purposes I need to be able to defend it. There are items that have pulled back from 5 years ago but are still twice what they were in 1998.

I then got into looking at his listings and made these notes:

I just looked at some of the items he has:

1998 value for the N/C slides – $2 – $3 each – now selling for $10 – $25
Philmont patch with segments – he’s asking $300. Fair market if sewn is $85 – $100. Price in 1998 – $150
Region 9 jewelry pieces – in 1998 $5/each – 2011 – $10 – $30 each
1950 Jambo canvas patch – 1998 $25 – 2011 $20
1953 Jambo patch – 1998 $25 – 2011 $20

1950 Jambo emb. patch – 1998 $40 – 2011 $25-$40 so either no change or a decline.

1955 Silber WJ buckle – 1998 $125-$150 – 2011 current bid is $52 may go to $75.

So depending upon what he’s got, his stuff has gone down 40% or gone up 600%. Its not one number. Now this is assuming he wants to be honest with the IRS. And they’re one group I’m honest with.

In reflecting on this further, back in 1998 one could buy community strips for $0.10 to $0.25 each. Now they can bring $3 – $30. And for those who are math challenged that’s a 3000% to 30,000% increase in 13 years from the low end. I’ll have to dig into this deeper for things like First Flaps. More later.

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Last night nine of ten Michigan councils (the entire lower peninsula) voted to take the next step in creating a new structure for Scouting. This is the outcome of the BSA Area Project . The Chief Scout Executive has described it as one of the two most important new initiatives within the BSA (the other being the Summit base in West Virginia).

Here’s a PDF of the announcement from the Area 2 President:

Sept 16 Announcement by Area President Younkman

Previously we covered this back in January Area Project – Designing Scouting for the 21st Century.

There’s still much to do and many things to be worked out. The councils will make one more vote over the next 45 days to ratify the recommendation to integrate. Exciting times. Scary times. But necessary for us to improve our ability to serve our country’s youth.

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