Seller Wishingtree07 has popped up on eBay with many brand new fakes of Scout patches, mostly OA. Here’s a PDF of his offerings.

New ‘Faker’ out of Malaysia on eBay

His descriptions do mention that they are brand new patches and have a heat seal back. Frankly, not sure how he chose the designs to make. For some, the original issue is cheaper than what he’s charging for the fake. You make your own decision as to whether to buy or not, although if you don’t buy then there will be fewer offered in the future.

Update 4/22/08 - More to this story - now seeing these items under a new seller id: YCPATCH as well. I went back and Wishingtree07 is still listing but NONE of their Boy Scout fakes have sold over the past two weeks. That’s a sure way to get this to end. These guys are paying less than $1 a patch. They are hoping for unsuspecting buyers. That hurts us all if they pull it off.

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Last week a silkscreened OA neckerchief from Aheka Lodge 359 auctioned off for $14,665.

This is a new record for a non-patch neckerchief. There have been neckerchiefs that have sold for more due to the patch on them.

Here’s some of the background information the seller provided:

The gentleman I purchased this neckerchief from was inducted in 1952. He indicated that he had been given this NC by his Lodge Advisor. The NC had been issued prior to 1952 and was no longer available. Not listed in BLUE BOOK. Previously unknown issue.

A couple of things - one, our hobby is a great hobby with collecting interest at all levels. There are those who are actively collecting the rarest of the rarest and the prices in our hobby are not a barrier. There are others who collect at the other economic end of the hobby.

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Most collectors don’t know that the early name for lodge 103 was Juniata, like the council name, and not Monaken. The lodge had this name from 1937 to 1941. One person who does know is Dr. Hal Yocum as Monaken was his home lodge. We recently connected with Dr. Yocum at the Dallas Trade-o-ree where he brought his 103 patch (one of six known) and discussed the variations and how Monaken later picked up the design. He brought one original Juniata patch with him and color copies of the other known specimen.

 

 Dr. Hal Yocum discusses the first issues from Juniata Lodge 103: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

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Just received the following picture of a great display David Oertle put together for a recent lodge function. It presents particularly early pieces from Sanhican Lodge from Trenton, NJ. Click on the image for a larger view.

A favorite quote of mine comes from collector Dr. Jeff Morley - “What we know about pre-WW 2 Order of the Arrow is an accident.” Everything in David’s display is pre-1940. Just amazing. The 2 R1 is one of the earliest OA patches, not just the first issue for lodge 2 but one of the first lodge patches period. It dates to roughly 1928 and is contemporaneous with the 1 R2 (formerly 1 R1). Similar design. Similar material. Probably made by the same company.

Also, the membership card is noteworthy not just for its vintage but it does not show a lodge number. This could have been made before lodges were numbered.

We know the name of the recipient of the Vigil sash. It was from a Lodge 2 member who received it in 1935. From some research Paul Myers is doing on Vigil memorabilia, there were barely more than 100 Vigils in the whole country as of this time. The hobby generally does not realize how rare and scarce these early Vigil items are. All in all a wonderful display. Often it is not quantity but quality that really matters. And it is much more than just patches that make for an interesting display. (One piece that others should draw from this display are the notes that David added to the frame. This helps provide context for lay audience and new collectors.) Well done David.

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I was working with a great patch - the 337 F1. This specimen is particularly nice because it is uncut and unfolded. Most were folded and even cut down to the border of the eagle. Also, this patch came with the person’s membership card dated 1947.

The 1948 OA Handbook on page 19 shows some lodge emblems that existed at the time. Included in this group is the 33 F1. As the Morley-Topkis-Gould first flap book points out, this is probably the first “First Flap.” The actual date of issuance is not confirmed but it could have been as early as 1943 so it pre-dates the Otyokwa. Did the 337 guys see the lodge 33 guys at the 1946 Grand Lodge meeting and decide that would be cool to have a pocket flap?

337 was also involved though in another patch design migration.

Their first solid, possibly the first “rolled edge First Solid” flap, came out at the 1953 National Jamboree along with one of the prettiest JSPs from that jambo for Chippewa Valley Council.

Now look at the lodge 300 Peta S1 first flap from Montana.

Obviously it came from the 337 design but who did it? Was it a member from 337 that moved to Montana ( the headquarters city was home to an Air Force base so could be very transient)? Was it a professional Scouter? Was it from the jamboree participants?

Also, what other roving patch designs are out there?

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The title is probably mis-leading. This is not about OA lodge jacket patches but OA lodge patch jackets. Yes, there are such things. I recently added one to my collection which already may well be the largest in the country. Now I have four.

Here’s the newest addition. Its from Lodge 110 Michigamea with their rare 1969 NOAC contingent patch on it.

Others that are in this “world’s largest” collection is one from Katinonkwat Lodge 93 out of Ohio:

Lodge 139 Ah-tic from Pennsylvania:

And one from Ahtuquoag Lodge 540:

What is nice about the 110 and the 540 is that they are dated.

Finding out what is even out there is a problem. I had one from Seminole lodge 85 that I let go to a friend of mine who is from that lodge. Other than that, I’ve not seen many. What can you report as existing? My guess is most of these were for contingents or lodge leaders. Probably most were locally made at local sporting goods stores that could do chain stitch embroidery for varsity letter jackets. They generally appear to be from the 1960s. There must be some more after that although I am not interested in ones that are just a patch sewn on a jacket. They need to have some sort of ‘embellishment’ to qualify.

As an addendum - this ‘collection’ isn’t just limited to OA jackets. Another interesting one is one from Camp Betz of Pokagon Trails Council in Indiana. I don’t know the year but its felt on felt. Probably from the late 1950s.

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Every time this pops up on eBay we get asked if this is an OA pin. No. This is not an OA pin. It is not a Vigil pin. It is a YMCA pin. And, they are extremely common (and this picture, from a current listing, is upside down as to how the pin was worn.)

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I just got back from serving on staff for the National Order of the Arrow Conservation and Leadership Summit. Last year was a National Order of the Arrow Conference (NOAC). This normally would be an off-year but there will be three years between NOACs. The next one is not until 2009. The reason is to not have a NOAC on a National Jamboree year and to get on a cycle that puts the NOACs to hit the 100th anniversary of the OA in 2010.

The OA organized this event so as to provide something in between the NOACs. So, you have an event, what do you do for content? The purpose was the roll-out of the new OA strategic plan and to prepare for the Arrow Corps 5 program in 2008.

The last National Leadership Summit was in 1999. Having a summit gives another leadership opportunity for OA officers and advisors. That’s always good. But, there were problems with this one.

This was actually two parallel events. This makes sense from staffing and logistics but it was not clearly communicated to lodges. One event was the Leadership Summit. The other was the Conservation Summit. From talking with several contingents this was not really clear.

Nor was it clear that those participating in the Conservation Summit were expected to be crew leaders for next year’s program.

Because of confusion, or at least lack of clarifcation, of the purpose of the two events attendance was way under plan. The planned numbers I heard at the conference were 2,000 with a hoped for 2,500. Now, I am not sure who came up with the plan but last summer at NOAC we were hearing that the event was planned for five (5) people per lodge (both lead advisors, Lodge Chief and one or two Vice Chiefs). Take that number times 300 lodges and I thought the event was going to be 1,500 person event. That was much closer to the reality. I never did get final numbers but it seemed that 1,250 was more like the attendance. Of this, 400 were staff and National Committee members. From one source, I heard that the OA Committee was expecting 800 for the Conservation Summit but had less than 250. Not a very good showing from us for the National Forest Service.

My ‘back of envelope’ numbers would indicate that the OA took a significant financial loss on this event. Guestimating a revenue number of $600,000 - $700,000 actual is probably more like $400,000. That’s $200,000 under budget on revenue. With guarantees in place for meals and beds, they could not scale back the expense side fast enough nor large enough to close this gap. Ouch.

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As Jeff Cook reports in the patchblanket.com blog - there is a whole store for fake patches out of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.

There’s really no rhyme nor reason to what this faker has chosen. Some of the real patches sell for less than what he’s asking for his fakes. Go figure. Still, they’re now in the collecting stream. We’re working on a way to fix this for the high end collectibles in our hobby.

The fakes are dominated by OA but not solely as he’s got some fake CSPs (again not sure why he chose to pick the ones he did.) One way to control this is to not buy but his profits are so large that he does not need many to sell to make a profit.

Thanks to Jeff and Jason from the patchblanket.com

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