In a previous post I mentioned that we’re helping the folks at Scouting magazine for a new column of theirs. One idea we gave that they’re considering is some of the oddball merit badges. Here’s one, from R. Lynn Horne, MD of the Las Vegas International Scouting Museum that is seldom seen. It is the first Insect Life merit badge. It came out in 1923. The design shows a spider. But, a spider is not an insect. Thus, the design was changed in 1925. During the two years it existed, 73 insect life merit badges were earned.

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Information just out from the Top Hands meeting, the Scouts are on track for a record number of Scouts to earn their Eagle rank award. Fantastic!

The recent issue of Scouting reported that in 2008 Scouts earned 2.3 million merit badges. The top 10 were all Eagle required, no surprise there. The top one was First Aid (103,503) then Swimming (89,580) and Environmental Science (83,845). Think about how much better a country we are for having this many youth learning these valuable skills! Think how much better we would be if more were learning these skills. Where do the youth of our country get such opportunities? How many men got exposed to their eventual avocation through work on a merit badge? When do we open this up to females too? One of the strengths of this country is that we try to empower everyone. Scouting is part of the solution.

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We recently received a merit badge sash with an Air Scout blue Aviation merit badge but with major differences in the red embroidery. See below - standard variety on the left, strange/new variety on the right. Differences are in the prop, nose cone and detailing on the tail fins. Maybe this variation has been reported and we just missed it but I don’t think so. Maybe someone can provide some more insight or background. The rest of the sash had other narrow tan crimped merit badges. No fine twills so I’d date it to late 1930s to very early 1940s.

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The Scouting Century Foundation’s display of Sea Scout ship medallions and flag ship fleet patches won “Best of Show” at the recent 2009 Dallas Trade-o-ree. We caught up with the Foundation’s Executive Director Sam Fairchild to discuss and review for you the contents of this display. See the pod-cast below.

Sea Scouting is the oldest specialty program within the BSA. It started in 1913 and continues to this day. It has its own highly distinctive and coveted insignia and memorabilia. Some of its most distinctive badges are ship medallions, youth designed badges, for each Sea Scout unit. Also, starting in the early 1930s through the late 1940s there were national and then regional and local competitions for the best ships. The Foundation now holds what we believe to be the best collection in the country. Sam wanted us to be sure to note that Kelly Williams, President of the Krelman Co. originally built the collection and in the past year worked with the Foundation to move it to their holdings.

Here’s our interview with Sam.

 

 Scouting Century Foundation Award Winning Sea Scout display: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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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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The National Eagle Scout Association, NESA, came out with a new uniform square knot for lifetime members. I’ve heard from a collector that received one noting that it was oversized. He had gotten two in and sent one to Dennis Dowling’s museum in Raton, NM. Dennis put it on display. When a National Supply Division staff member came through this summer Dennis pointed out that the square knot was much larger than normal knots (this brings back recollections of the first Spurgeon Award knot). The Supply Division person said this shouldn’t be and had all of the knots recalled and issued to the correct size. We don’t know how many of the error ones got out.

See the picture below for the differences. At first I was thinking it was just extra cloth which is happening now with some of the knots due to poor quality control but no the first issue is much larger than the correct knot. Should be some collector item.

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There have been some recent articles in ISCA about merit badges. One part of the discussion was questioning whether merit badges were made using silk thread. We brought this up a couple of years ago as we offered up narrow tan merit badges (circa late 1930s to 1945) that identified versions embroidered with silk thread and versions embroidered with cotton thread. This change over in thread types occurred sometime during the WW2 years. The collectors of adult insignia or youth rank badges have known of the thread difference for at least a decade (see Terry Grove’s books on Eagles or Paul Myers’ books). Some collectors of merit badges though have still been in denial. Unfortunately Terry and Paul’s work was ignored by some merit badge experts.

Well, as we have been preparing the auction of a very nice collar pin collection we opened up one of our favorite reference books Uniform Badges and Insignia the BSA published in 1933.

Going into the book, there is a section on merit badges. In black and white they note that the patches are embroidered in silk on khaki cloth. I am not sure what better documentation to come up with for those still in denial.

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A fun little collection that I put together is a type-set, one of each type, of patrol identification. I use this for displays at troop and council activities as it catches folks attention. They can connect to the collection because of the current badges that they’re familiar with or from the ones when they were kids. From this connection, they then get interested in the earlier versions. I include some information as to when each were used as well as that although some look the same from the front there are noticeable differences on the back. I’ve been able to put together not only a type-set but a type-set of the same patrol.

Here’s what I’ve included:

Flying Eagle patrol ribbon. Patrol ribbons were used from 1911 to 1929. The earliest ones were 5 1/2″ long. This one is 4 1/2″ which puts it in the 1925-1929 era. This is the style of patrol identification that England use and the BSA adapted it. What makes the BSA versions distinctive from UK versions is the flat metal bar and prongs, or tab, used to hold the ribbon to the shirt. UK versions used a safety pin. Someone can fill me in but some countries may still be using patrol ribbons to this day. Being here in Michigan we often see Canadian versions that are not that old and thus confuse novice collectors here thinking they have a really old piece of insignia and they don’t.

A square patrol medallion used from 1925-1926 and only in a few select councils. The reason for going to symbols was because people could not remember which combination of patrol colors go with which patrols unless they got out their handbook. These were screen printed on square pieces of felt. We still do not know how many different ones exist. In theory there could be 50 just like the patrol ribbons. The top collectors of these have between 10 and 20 different. A nice collection has 5 to 10, they are that hard.

After the successful test of the square patrol medallions, the BSA went to round versions. They also went to embroidering the patches rather than screen printing. The first ones, used from 1927 to 1933, did not have BSA on them and were made of felt. They added BSA in 1933 but kept it on felt. In 1953 they switched to red twill. In 1972 they went to multi-colored twill (no example pictured) and dropped BSA. In 1989 they went to tan twill.

Even though some of the material was used for a long period of time, felt and later twill, there are noticeable differences when one turns them over.

The felt BSA come in what is called ‘black back’ and ‘white back’. The difference was the color of the backing thread used in the embroidery process. Black backed patrol medallions were used from 1933 to the late 1930s. The white backed ones were used from 1940s to 1952.

In the red twill patches there are three types of backs - rubber back, paste back, and plastic back.

I don’t yet have an example in Flying Eagle but in the rubber back there are even two more varieties - where the ‘rubber’ backing material is completely over the embroidery or under the embroidery. Here’s an example though for Frontiersman.

Collectors have taken these further and pursued even more varieties! As with any Scout badges used for so many years and made by different manufacturers there are even more varieties although the ones listed here are what we consider the major versions.

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We are always scanning web-sites and auctions for interesting pieces of Scouting memorabilia. This past week an interesting patch blanket auctioned on eBay. (An aside - You have got to love patch blankets as you wonder if there’s a pony in there somewhere. Although, as one ‘patch digger’ said “As soon as I see that the patches were sewn on to a blanket or coat, I immediately drop my offer because the person has already indicated what they think their items are worth. Not much if it can be sewn on to a blanket.”)

Back to the story - the blanket had a number of mostly 1960s era patches out of the Del-Mar-Va area. There were some older pieces but in general not very note worthy. There was an interesting, at least for us red and white collectors, homemade strip that said “The Hague/Netherlands”. If it had been US made, “Katie bar the door” as the saying goes. But, since it was hand made, its a curiousity piece and nothing more.

What was interesting though, and actually much earlier than most of the other patches was a Type 2 Scoutmaster. Destry picked up on that it seemed wierd but he was thinking about the line-in-crown issue of this patch which was used only one year. No, this is the no-line issue that was used from 1920 to 1937 but what sets it apart is the style of the eagle and the way the feathers lay-out. Also, the knot hanging from the scroll is unlike any of the other knots. The eagle’s talons stretch into the petals of the FDL. Its almost like one of those “What’s hidden in this picture” puzzles.

Here’s a picture of the patch.

Note that the top of the eagle’s wings go straight across. The standard version has the eagle feathers following the curve of the First Class badge, a different hanging knot and many other differences. See below

In talking with one expert collector, he indicated that this issue is known in both Scoutmaster (white outline) and Assistant Scoutmaster (yellow outline) but that this is only the second straight-wing variety he has ever seen. Now, he has seen a lot of patches but we do not know what people have in their collection and don’t realize it. Maybe you need to go check?

Why this variety exists, we don’t know. It is probably due to a different manufacturer. It would make sense that there must be a production run of these unless they were a manufacturer’s sample that has gotten into the mix. This style of eagle, almost a more military style eagle, does not appear on other badges of this era or later for that matter.

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