ID’ing the 1924 Eagle Patch

Posted on October 8th, 2011 in Jamborees,Merit Badges by ramore

We recently placed a 1924 World Jamboree merit badge sash with the first Eagle patch on it. We’ve been asked how one can identify such a thing. Well several ways but first some history.

Prior to the 1924 World Jamboree the BSA did not sell a merit badge sash. Scouts and Scouters, who could earn merit badges at that time, were left to their own devices. If you only had a few merit badges you would sew them on your shirt sleeve. If you had lots of merit badges, you could keep going up your sleeve. The Scouts DID sell a false sleeve, a snappable sleeve to wrap around your shirt sleeve that one could sew on more merit badges if they did not fit the shirt or if you did not want to wash the badges when you washed the shirt.

We have examples of home made sashes as well. Here’s an example of one that is almost a bandelero that goes over the shoulder and around the waist. Because of the type of badges on the sash, we know its a “teens era” sash.

Also, prior to 1924 there was no patch for the Eagle rank. There was only the medal.

What made the 1924 World Jamboree special, in Chief Scout Executive James West’s perspective, was that participation was limited due to the camp size and that there was going to be Scout competitions between countries. West wanted to win and to visually have the sharpest looking contingent. Thus he had made up an Eagle patch and tailored merit badge sashes so all were consistent.

So how can one tell if you have a 1924 sash or Eagle patch? Here’s a picture of one we just placed. Note on the Eagle patch where the tips of the gray scroll extend into the white oval. Later issues stop at the edge. Then on the sash, the patches were sewn onto the khaki cloth and THEN the border/piping for the sash was sewn. Thus the border covers the edges of the merit badges. These sashes exist as two-wide and three-wide.

Update: Terry’s helped point out a needed correction in my write-up:

Only the first aid merit badge is sewn onto the khaki.  The rest of the merit badges are actually part of the sash.  The merit badge sash was two ply.  The top ply was cut so that the merit badges (sewn together) could be sewn into the ply and become part of the ply. The border was then applied to finish the look all around the sash.

Close-up of how merit badges were sewn into the sash in 1924

 

How have Scout patch prices changed since 1998?

Posted on October 4th, 2011 in Hobby Trends,Insignia,Jamborees,OA by ramore

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.

1964 National Jamboree Phone Decal

Posted on September 7th, 2011 in Jamborees by ramore

Packing and pulling last night’s close and even I get amazed at some of the things that come through our hands. One such piece is this:

Its a telephone center/decal from the 1964 National Jamboree with the extension written in on it.

That this has survived for nearly 50 years. Wonderful. Glad it found a new home. The new owner will have a ‘brag’ piece that very few, if anyone else, in the country has. Pretty good buy I figure.

 

Which troops were where at Jambo’s 35 & 37?

Posted on September 3rd, 2011 in Jamborees by ramore

From Kory Louis out of Kansas I got this question:

Roy:

I am trying to figure out which flashes/tabs were assigned to Scouts from the Kansas City area for the 1935 and 1937 National Jamborees.  Do you know of any resources that list the region/section/troop assignments?

So far I have:

1935- VIII, ?, ?
1937- VIII, P, ?

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Have a nice weekend,

Kory

PS – I’ve enjoyed your video interviews on YouTube.

I’ve seen parts of such listings for some Regions/Areas (I think I have a Region 7 that covered Michigan kicking around here somewhere in my archives) but I don’t recall seeing a complete listing. Who can help out? I know there are some collectors who have been working on this for quite some time (they are also good at picking up on “recombined” 1937 flashes where the blue region tab does not match the sub-camp/troop red tab. If you have any confirmed info, even if not Region 8, post it here.

 

Shelley on Choby N/C slides

Posted on August 15th, 2011 in Hobby News,Jamborees,Podcasts by ramore

At the recent Calutmet TOR we hooked up with ISCA OA column editor Bruce Shelley. Bruce is best known in the hobby for his articles, along with co-author Dave Minnihan, on Order of the Arrow issues and trends. But as we blogged previously many of us have side collections that interest us just as much. For Bruce it is the woodcarver Ed Choby hand carved slides.

Here’s our video interview with Bruce. As background, Ed Choby was one of a small group of expert wood carvers that produced slides based to ‘Slides of the Month’ in Boy’s Life for others. His name appears on many slides. I consider these slides, and many of the Boy Scout slides, as excellent examples of America Folk Art.

If it does not pop-up, you can go to YouTube here.

 

Lower Rio Grande Council Flag

Posted on May 23rd, 2011 in Jamborees,Uncategorized by ramore

Just received an interesting pic. Its a 1953 National Jamboree flag from a council I’ve not seen before. See Lower Rio Grande Valley Council in the title. This council name does exist although it was listed as going out in 1947. Other than this flag I’ve not seen anything with this name on it. Anyone have anything?

 

World Jamboree 2015 Coming to USA?

Posted on May 3rd, 2011 in Jamborees by ramore

Heard an interesting, plausible possibility. Right now the BSA, along with the Scouts of Canada and the Scouts of Mexico, are scheduled to host the 2019 World Jamboree at the BSA’s new Summit site. The 2015 Jamboree is scheduled to be held in Japan. The rumor running around is that the dates will be switched as Japan may not be ready, or folks may be leery of going, to a jamboree there in 2015 due to the nuclear plant problems. Has anyone else heard this? Any truth to it?

Info Coming out on 2013 BSA National Jamboree

Posted on April 21st, 2011 in Jamborees by ramore

I’m starting to hear about some of the operations plans for the 2013 National Jamboree. Some of these include:

  • There won’t be a Merit Badge midway
  • There won’t be an Exhibits area other than in the Action Centers
  • Staff will have to pass the Philmont trek physical
  • All staff will stay in tents that might, or might not, have electricity or a floor or netting,
  • Target number of participants is 13,000 – 15,000, less than 1/2 the last jamboree.

Now, inquiring minds might ask why is this so? Well, its because the place hasn’t been built yet. The BSA needs to bring in little things like water, electricity, waste treatment, roads, trails, etc.. Let alone the creation of buildings. There is, I’ve been told, an excellent amphitheater area that could hold 10’s of thousands so that’s certainly a plus.

The next question is why don’t we go back to A.P. Hill, excuse me, the military facility in Caroline County? The public answer is that the base is being re-activated and active duty personnel will be there by 2013. Maybe. And not to confuse the discussion that the base has 76,000 acres and most of the Scout activities are in wide-open fields and that creation of the Jamboree provides an excellent logistical training opportunity for the military. What the BSA needs is to have the Summit used twice for two national events in order to be eligible to host the World Jamboree. Also, it does create a motivation for getting donors to offer up resources now that there’s a pressing timeline and need.

I’ve been predicting for over 10 years that the next jamboree will have fewer JSPs than the last. I based this on the knowledge that there would be fewer councils. Well, I’m likely to be eventually correct but for different reasons.

What will be the impact on collecting? Harder to tell. There will be swapping but this may well be the smallest Jamboree ever (I’ll have to look up the numbers for 1969). Collecting I guess will be fine. Most important is that the event provides a great experience for the Scouts. It just that there will be fewer of them at this next one.

Referencing Scouting Magazine

Posted on April 20th, 2011 in BSA Info,Insignia,Jamborees by ramore

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.)

Of Sales Seen and Unseen

Posted on March 29th, 2011 in Hobby Trends,Insignia,Jamborees,OA by ramore

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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