Fellow Scout patch dealer Richard Shields, the Carolina Trader, sent me an e-mail that as he says, “is humorous if it wasn’t so serious.”

I received a call on Sun. night that I thought at first was a joke but
later found out the lady was dead serious.  Below is an article from a
Colorado paper in regards to the first aid kits.  The ones from Johnson
and Johnson made during the 1930-40s have gauze pads with an ointment on
them that crystallizes over time.  Those crystals are explosive.  The
lady from NC had her pads blown up after they evacuated her neighborhood
for four hours.  She said they made a pretty good pop. If you having
any, call your local authorities.

Checking an article from the Denver News they reported the following:

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. — The Colorado Springs Police Department’s Hazardous Materials Team and Regional Explosives Unit was called out to a fire station Sunday because of concerns about the safety of a an antique Boy Scout first aid kit.The owner of the kit was concerned that kit may contain a small amount of picric acid and brought the kit to Fire Station 5 in Colorado Springs for disposal.The hazmat and explosives team remotely removed the hazard to a safe location and destroyed it, officials said.

Same Chemical Causes Other Evacuations

Picric acid was found in an antique Boy Scout first aid kit at the Pioneers Museum in Colorado Springs earlier this month. The museum was evacuated while the bomb squad and firefighters removed the material.

The same chemical was found in a historic doctor’s bag last month in a warehouse in the Lowry area of Denver belonging to the Colorado Historical Society, said society spokeswoman Rebecca Laurie.It too was picric acid, so the Denver bomb squad and a fire hazmat teams were called in to remove the acid.

“Sometimes, our researchers do come across chemicals in these kinds of medical hits or chemistry kits, things that were donated a long time ago,” said Laurie. “If they’re not sure what it is, they’re trained to call 911.

“Picric acid was stocked in pharmacies in the early 1920s as an antiseptic and as a treatment for burns, malaria, herpes and smallpox.

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We’ve had in our Blogroll, a list of related blogs, the one for Scouting magazine. I’ll admit I haven’t checked it out in a while even though I work with their team on some magazine articles. They have really freshened up their site (I’m a little jealous). It covers adult Scouting topics which also includes insignia.
Scouting is the magazine for registered adults. Probably most collectors get it but not all. From time to time the magazine has produced great references of current program recognitions such as religious emblems, square knots, and announcing new insignia.

Here are some recent articles that you might find interesting. I did.

Why does silver outrank gold in Scouting awards?

The USA 2011 World Jamboree Contingent patch (which I think is near hideous, where’s Michael Feigenbaum’s design expertize when they need it?)

The 2019 World Jamboree coming to the National Summit (we talked about this at the Dallas TOR, I need to post on this too.)

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At the upcoming National meeting there will be the introduction of a new knot for “Commissioner
Award of Excellence in Unit Service”. I don’t have the requirements yet. Knot collecting continues to be quite popular. George Crowl has a great web-site for these. Go to the Publications section. There he has Word documents covering all the periods back to the beginning. Enthusiasts even go after the type of backs and twill differences (some of which are VERY hard).

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Last year the BSA did something smart both from a sales perspective but also from a branding perspective. They noted the 100th anniversary year on the ranks. I was in our Scout office recently and saw that they were out of the 2010 ranks but in looking at the back of the new badges I noted that they had 2010 logo on the back. I don’t know if that is going to continue or if these were made after the order for the 2010 front badges. The merit badge collectors are collecting these backs. It would not surprise me that the insignia collectors will too. But, they could be gone before we know it. If this is an area you collect, pick them up now rather than wait. And just because anyone can buy them, don’t dismiss the collectible interest a few years from now. I remember the time when we never bought extra OA back patches or red and white strips because we could ‘always’ pick them up. Until we couldn’t. Now look at what they bring.

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Over the past couple of weeks at different TORs (Pittsburgh at the beginning of the month and Detroit at the end) I have had an on-going discussion with senior collectors about a challenge in the hobby. It affects them as they are holders of the super rare and super valuable collectibles. The problem is the vast majority of the hobby does not know what they don’t know. Because they do not know, they do not know the value or more specifically the prices collectors are willing to pay for the rare items.

Some cases in point. In the past three months we’ve placed three (3) Calusas, two (2) Kiminschis, a Monsey, a 155, a Checote, a ’24 US WJ contingent patch, key red and whites/KRS strips etc.. In the past year we’ve privately placed two (2) Balugas, three (3) Zhingwaks, several four figure WAB issues, key insignia and world jamboree items, etc.. All of these were private placements and have not seen the light of day. To most in the hobby these transactions never happened because they weren’t aware of it.

Jason Spangler, the Santee Swapper, runs an e-mail service looking at things on eBay. That’s where the eyes are. He has shown top twenty sellers for each of the past couple of months. We’re consistently at the top by magnitudes over the next highest sellers (there are reasons for this but that’s another topic) but what’s seen in this report is only a fraction of what we’re handling by dollar volume (not necessarily patch volume – we’re shipping 200+ packages a week most with multiple patches).

In addition to the placements we make we are often asked for advice on either the buy side (i.e., “what should I pay?” questions) or sell side (i.e., “What should this sell for?” or “Can you help me place xyz item?”). We may not be involved in the final sale but know of what transaction happened such as several MAJOR insignia collections selling in the past year or two in the hundred thousand dollar range as single sales/single buyer.

Physics tell us, a tree DOES make a sound when it falls in the woods even if no one is around to here it. Private patch sales indicate a value even if only a few people see it. So, how do we educate the hobby? Is this not a problem? Is it those who have these items don’t want collectors to know the value?

Update: As examples, here are some of great Scout pieces that went through us in the past 3 days most which were not offered publicly:

Stag totem pin, Hood

Lodge 24 totem pin (with blue cloissone)

1940 NOAC Medal with Name Badge

Lodge 189 event First Flap

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One of my Scouting roles is an Area Vice President. I chair one of seven task forces chartered by the National Key-3 to propose the ideal structure for the delivery of Scouting in Central Region Area 2. The vision for the project is to:

We will have the ideal structure to support a vital, growing Scouting program for youth, families, charter organizations, units and communities within Area 2 that will remain sustainable through the 21st century.

We’ve been asked to dream big and with a blank slate – that is, if we were starting fresh except for what goes on in units, how would we design the organization of Scouting.

There is a project web-site that has minutes from the various discussions, presentations made on work to date, etc.. Check it out. Feel free to pass on your suggestions and I will take them to the task force. This is an open project with nothing predetermined.

Naragansett Council of Rhode Island has initiated some structural changes within their council. They have dropped the term ‘District’ and have organized Community Groups and Service Area Groups (comprised of Community Groups). They have even re-named their commissioner titles and issued new badges of office. See below.

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In the past few years, the BSA Supply Division has made changes to the front designs to several merit badges. Also, starting around 2006 they began to have “Scout Stuff” printed on the back of the patches. Fred Duersch is the current editor of the Merit Badge Field Guide and author of the current classification system for merit badges. These new ‘SSB’ (Scout stuff back) merit badges are called “Type – J”.

Well, with any transition across an existing inventory and new products coming out, not everything is done consistently. Too many moving parts. While doing some cataloging and updating our inventory of merit badges I noted having one not yet listed as a type H – plain plastic back called Auto Maintenance. In theory this badge should not exist as it came out in 2008, after the conversion to SSB.

Another one is Composite Materials.

Fred and Craig McDaniel are working on an article for ISCA to catalog these transition oversight issues. They are likely to be quite scarce. It is like the transition from square merit badges to wide crimps. Many of the rarest, and most valuable, square merit badges are the ones that just came out before the transition (e.g., Pigeon Raising, Rowing, Mechanical Drawing).

Update: Talked with Ron Oslin at the Dallas TOR about these. What he pointed out was some of these post SSB badges had problems with the Consumer Protection laws that limited the use of pthalates (sp?), a chemical used to soften plastic on the backing of these patches, so that some came in to this country without SSB even though they never existed in the plastic back era. Still, they are going to show up on Type H – plastic back collecting lists as that is where they fit in.

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I’m not a member of the National Rifle Association but our incoming council president is. When we met recently for lunch he had the December, 2010 issue of American Rifleman. In it they have a wonderful article about the Marksmanship merit badge, this year’s National Jamboree and the NRA’s partnership with the BSA. Check it out on their web-site.

As the article points out:

“Marksman” was one of the first 14 Badges of Merit (later termed Merit Badges) offered in the original 1910 Scout Handbook

Aritst Joseph Csatari

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Marin Council did Star Wars again (they were the ones behind a Yoda set a few jamborees ago that were the rage of the Jamboree). They have three troops that each have a JSP and then each patrol has their own patrol medallion (a total of 12). Below is a picture of six of them. Some are confusing these as their JSPs but their JSP is a standard shape and is also a dye-sub patch.

These patches were priced at $200 for the 12 before the Jambo and $250 per set after. I don’t have a production quantity yet.

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