We certainly try to have fun with patches. Another person that brought fun to the hobby was Pappy Reinegar and the Texas Trader’s Den.

I don’t remember who all was in here but certainly Bill Price (of the pocket illustrated OA patch book fame), John Bibo, Robert Frizzell, Steve Ross and many more.

We came a cross a couple of their flaps from the 1970s one of which is this week’s quiz. Do you know what PGIT means?

One eBay seller, from Texas, even uses this as his handle. Doctoral question: Why were the feather drops made the way they were?

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I know, its a little crowing but what the hey - we recently passed 60,000 positive feedbacks from over 7,000 customers. Given that not everyone leaves feedback and not everyone leaves feedback for every item purchased and that many of our lots are multiple patch lots - that’s a lot of patches! It is also a lot of repeat purchases.

Tico Perez recently did some postings asking about the state of the hobby. I shared several thoughts with him one of them being that we have a lot more customers than any of the trading societies, off-line or on-line, have. And we don’t have everyone as a customer , yet :-). There clearly is a lot of interest in Scouting collectibles. We are always looking at ways to make the hobby more fun and better. Please pass on your suggestions.

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I just fielded an e-mail from a friend asking about the value/price of the shoulder arcs from the 1935 National Jamboree. These were the first “JSPs”, i.e., jamboree shoulder patches.

Each troop had their own arc. The Roman numerals indicated the region. The capital letter indicated the sub-camp. The number indicated the troop. They are made of red felt with white printing. Quite often these can be found unused because the jamboree was canceled but also many have moth holes from their storage over the years. Each participant got two badges.

These used to be a consistent $125 in price. Then they went to $225. Now they seem to be consistently in the $280 - $380 range. They are truly scarce. It used to be that folks collected just one for their jamboree collection. Now there are several that are trying to put region sets together, i.e., one from each region. And, there are a few that are going gonzo trying to get one from every troop! It makes sense though as we collect JSPs from every council for most of the modern jamborees so why wouldn’t some collect the shoulder arcs the same way. If this trend continues, then these could well be underpriced. But also, this is for a very sophisticated and well heeled collector to go after these that completely.

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Nearly every year since 1991 I have written a ‘Year in Review’ article either as part of our prices realized book or as a submission to the International Scout Collectors Association (ISCA) journal.

Here’s this year’s in PDF.

For the rest of the article including category by category reviews, see the upcoming International Scout Collectors Association journal. Go to www.scouttrader.org for membership information.

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On 12/18/05 this neckerchief, a Lodge 61 Shaginappi N1 brought $1,025. I don’t know if this is a record for a silkscreen neckerchief but its right up there. This has been a hot area in part because people didn’t collect them. In days gone by, say the 1970s through the early 1990s, you couldn’t hardly give these away especially the silkscreened ones. Now as folks fill in their collections they’re trying to find these and they can’t.

When there’s a new price point for something like this at auction, I like to look at the third high bid to see if it was just two guys going crazy against each other. In this case though, the third high was at $978. The fourth high was at $55.

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Obviously this is a very traumatic experience for the folks of southern Lousiana, Mississippi and Alabama but think of how many Boy Scout patch collections and accumulations were lost by this event as well!

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I’m beginning to think that attending a Jamboree for a collector is no longer worth it. Going to the Jambo this time was good for me as I got to take my son and spend time with him. But, from a collecting stand point I’m not so sure it makes sense.

Sure, I know I made some bargain trades but it also cost a lot to attend. Plus, there’s the cost of time away from work. I was able to visit with many friends and customers but from a collecting stand point, I can pick up most if not all of the items later this fall or even through next year. With so many items out there, is any of it scarce?

I remember the lodge 27 guys coming into DC saying how rare and tough their gold border two-piece set was. They “only” made 83. Well, guys get a life. There are less than 83 collectors in the country who care. Therefore supply is greater than demand. Now, will it be a squirrelly issue to locate after the jamboree? Yes. Can it be found? Again, yes.

With eBay now, these items will be available if you look for them. It doesn’t matter what they cost, it will be cheaper than factoring in the cost, time and energy of going.

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I’m sorting away on patches. Now doing the OA flaps. We got only one (1) lodge 60 flap. This used to be one of those lodges that you would not take in trade even 1-for-1. There a lot of old collecting ads that say “willing to trade, except for 15, 60 and 307.” Must not be many collectors there these days.

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One thing I noticed at the ISCA booth was that very few folks picked up the free ISCA OA and CSP checklists. I don’t know if we’ve gotten away from checklists. I think not. But, what I do think is that the lists have gotten so long and there are so many issues that people have decided to stay more focused (their council or lodge, their state or section, etc.)

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