Last week I was at my Scout office for a meeting and stopped by the trading post. They have the new boy rank patches out commerating the 100th anniversary year of the BSA. I think these are neat but the quality control is poor. There are at least three major varieties in this group alone. Some appear to have been made by the BSA. Others have ‘Made in China’ stickers on the back. The latter is a separate sore point but we’ll leave that for another blog. Anyway, variety collectors are going to have a field day figuring these out. I’m told there’s an Eagle patch as well but I’ve not seen it. I’ve also been told that Scout shops are to have returned their inventory of the regular items so as to be replaced with these 2010 pieces.

Then Destry and I went to the Indy TOR this past weekend. Their hospitality was great as always (except for the 9″ of snow.) Several councils now have out 2010 patches. That got me asking around how many items do you think we’ll have for the 100th anniversary? By “items” I mean regular issue pieces - CSPs, JSPs, OA items. I’m figuring it will be up to 5,000. Could be more. And this is not counting camp and camporee items or Jamboree staff items. One could spend a lifetime just to collect this year. Also, I was hearing quotes for “rare, limited edition” varieties at huge prices. Councils and lodges could kill a good thing. If you know of some egregious abuses, please pass on the comment. Thanks.

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eBay seller freedomfifty2k has been out for a while with more fake Boy Scout patches produced in the Philippines. He’s had some Canal Zone Council 1960s era canoe race activity patches but now he’s running a lodge 391 Chiriqui fake flap and a fake of the Camp El-Vol-Can patch. See below. His story is that these came from a Scouter who was a US Navy Chief that served in Vietnam. Doubtful. He says these patches were “worn by members of the a Boy Scouts of Canal Zone, Order of the Arrow (OA) Chiriqui Lodge 391, CZ Panama.” NOT Oh well. Buyer beware. It looks like folks are on to these not being real based upon bidding but certainly not from anything this seller is saying. eBay benefits financially from these fakes so they won’t do much to stop them which leaves it up to the hobby.

Fake El Vol Can patch

Boy Scout camp El Volcan fake patch

The real El-Vol-Can 1950 patch - white flock printing on blue felt. (This is from my collection. The piece that’s really interesting, IMHO, is the envelope corner from Canal Zone Council from 1950.)

Real Boy Scout Camp El Volcan patch from 1950

Fake Lodge 391 Chiriqui flap

Fake OA Lodge 391 flap

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From Kurt Hansen out of Wisconsin. Tony was one of the mainstays of Wisconsin collectors. He was a regular at the US Grant Pilgrimages and Calumet TOR as well as Milwaukee and Tichora TORs. He will be missed.

Dear Friends,

It is with great sadness that I write to let you know that our friend Tony
Lazewski has passed away. Tony was diagnosed with brain cancer last year and
underwent treatment. Unfortunately, it recurred this summer. He died
peacefully at Hospice with his family at his bedside.

Tony’s contribution to Scouting (despite having two daughters) was great. He
worked with a local troop for many years. He served as the Lodge Advisor for
Tichora Lodge for 8 years and was a key advisor when Chemokomen and Tichora
Lodges merged to form Takoda. He was, of course, a Silver Beaver recipient.

Tony was born in Antigo, Wisconsin, and grew up in Samoset Council and Tom
Kita Chara Lodge. He was an Eagle Scout and camp staffer at Camp Tesomas in
his youth. He attended 48 consecutive Fall Conferences for Tom Kita Chara
Lodge only missing his first one this year when he was too ill to travel. He
also loved the OA Section conclaves and attended enumerable of those
conferences.

Tony was an avid Scout historian and patch collector. He started collecting
patches in 1960. His knowledge of Scouting and Scout camps in Wisconsin was
unsurpassed. He was always willing to share his knowledge and was the OA
editor for the Scouting Collectors Quarterly. He researched and co-authored
“The First 90 Years”, the history of Four Lakes Council with myself and
others.

Although we all remember Tony as a Scouter and patch collector, his family
always came first. He was a terrific husband, father, and son. He leaves
behind his wife Barbara, daughters Lisa and Laura, and father Barnie.

His daughter sent out the information below about his funeral. If you can’t
attend I know that his family would enjoy hearing from you, and I have
included their address as well. I find myself in Europe at this sad time and
do not anticipate making it back in time for the funeral. Tony and I spent
countless hours together talking patches during the past decade and
especially during the last year. The personal loss that I feel is more than
I can express here. He was a close friend and I already miss him.

Kurt

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A seldom seen pair of patches, the first jacket patches from Chicksa Lodge 202, changed hands at the pre-NOAC TOR. As Bruce and Dave discussed in their recent ISCA article, a lot of the high-end patches are privately placed thus most in the hobby do not see them offered or know if they sold. The asking price on the pair was $10,250. They sold for a little less than this before the TOR was over.

Here’s the 202 J2 - the harder of the two. As the original owner said, “Locally these are referred to as the Prince Watkins issues.” He believes there are only six (6) of the J2’s. They are Asian embroidered and came out in the early 1970s (approximately 1972 for the J2).

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I don’t know what the record is for the number of lodge items issued for a NOAC but we could shatter it. I polled many senior collectors and the consensus number is 1,500 new items or about 5 per lodge (this is counting 2-piece sets as two). Even folks who thought their lodge was not a patch whore started counting the number of pieces and came up with 5 or 7 items. The typical mass-producers were at 10 or more items. Take that against approximately 300 lodges, with some lodges not being represented, and 1,500 seems to be the target.

We’ve taken over the management and publication of the OA Blue Book so we’re heading home from pre-NOAC to see that the system can handle all of these new additions. What an undertaking.

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Late Update 8/5/09: The OA Committee confirmed at the end of NOAC that the next NOAC is 2012 at MSU. MSU could provide up to 17,000 dorm rooms. The Committee is looking for an attendance of around 9,000 for this NOAC. MSU is also a candidate for the 2015 100th anniverasary NOAC where attendance could be 15,000.

Looks like Michigan State (MSU) is the likely site for the next National Order of the Arrow Conference. The original plans had been to go back to Iowa State but ISU is re-doing a number of dorms, including demolition of existing dorms, such that they could only host 4,200 participants. Clearly not enough.

In re-opening the site selection we heard that Penn State also has a proposal in for consideration. Some of the problems though with PSU is getting there is not easy. It would be a different venue which can be interesting but, having been on the staff side of these events, ease of logistics trumps a LOT of other considerations.

MSU appears to be getting quite aggressive in their bidding. They have a team visiting this conference. They toured the pre-NOAC TOR. The TOR was such a success that they are looking at central facilities on campus. The original thought had been a field house that was two miles away from the main residential halls but now they are trying to find alternatives, and have some, that are right in the heart of where we would have the NOAC.

It appears that MSU, which were ambivalent hosts for the 2006 NOAC, got a strong message from the local community of how great it was to have the Scouts in town. Also, there is new leadership at the university that has gotten more entreprenurial and inviting. Basically they are bending over backwards from what I hear to try and get the conference.

Some might wonder why these mid-west universities. Its because of their size. These campuses typically have 35,000 - 45,000 students and were built on wide open spaces. While I am located near the University of MIchigan it just does not have the extra dorm space nor the required facilities close in to the dorms to make it an easy site.

Unfortunately we’ll be back to a 3 year gap in conferences so as to not land on a jamboree year. There’s talk of another National Indian Seminar to be held in Asheville, NC for one of the intervening years.

The decision on MSU is not final. It probably won’t be made until the December planning conference given that there’s still plenty of lead time. We shall see.

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Spoke with Dave Richey today of Otetiana Council Rochestor, NY that the merger with Finger Lakes Council (Geneva, NY) is now complete. As Dave reported, the Finger Lake’s Exec was promoted which led their Board to consider whether consolidation might make sense. Rochestor has one county. Finger Lakes had three but with smaller population. It seems to be a smooth merger. Now the lodge 95 guys are looking for 417 items and vice versa. At some point there will be consolidation of the lodges I expect.

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My sharing of some rememberances, and patches, from Cahokia Mound Council and Cahokia Lodge 126 got Illinois collector and Blue Book Regional Editor Dave Pede in an e-mail discussion concerning the varieties and issues from this lodge.

Dave said:

I believe these images are adding some fuel to my fire about the existence of a distinct variety within the Gear shaped twill flaps.   I am attaching an image that you can post of 4 of my yellow twill 126 flaps.   Study them for a minute as one is unique (other than shades of yellow). That one being the same flap as Jim’s first flap. From discussions I have had I believe that Gear had two looms one smaller, possibly older or their first, and a second larger loom. The flaps made off of these two machines are identifiable different, even though they were probably run from the same punch patterns.  The differences are that the overall flap length is shorter by several millimeters and the border itself is narrower by a millimeter on the earlier flap.  My guess is that Gear started off with a particular loom and later upgraded to a newer better model. It does not necessarily mean that they did not use both machines together.  This is strictly my opinion but I believe that this helps my identify the smaller version flaps to be the earlier editions.   I have this same anomaly with the 115 Cascasquia flap as well.

I’ll have Destry chime in on this as well.  He’s from southern Illinois and came across a lot of Gear Mfg. patches. Gear was headquartered in St. Louis, MO. Actually we were just talking about this the other day as I was cataloging some of the consignment from the Morley-Topkis collection. There clearly are two length, actually may well be three, differences to Gear Mfg. flaps: 123mm, 126mm and 120mm.

I’ll see what Destry has to say. It may well be that one loom produced one size and another loom produced a different size - AT THE SAME time! If this is the case, there really is no basis for calling one before the other with respect to issuance.

I just got this note in from Jim:

…to my knowledge only a white, round OA patch was available in the beginning. I am not sure when the beginning was but as I remember .. I was tapped out in summer of 1955 .. because I was on the camp staff in 1956 and there on .. and I know whether it be 1955 or 1956 .. and I do not think 1956 because I believe I had the white patch for at least 1 year or more .. and received the white patch and then we got the flap patches just in time for Bloomington .. I still remember my mom fussing at me saying “Mom I have to get those patches switched before going to Bloomington. We all are going to wear the new patches.” Well it may not be an exact quote .. but pretty close.

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Earlier we blogged about the surfacing of some fake felt OA patches on eBay, specifically including the Illinois lodge 227 Wetassa. Their first issue patch, an R1, is one of the classic, toughest issues from Illinois. We know the buyers of the two that came up within two weeks of each other. The first buyer knew it was a fake but he had a real one and wanted the fake for his collection. He’s gotten it in and told us, besides being crude, that it is MUCH larger than the original. Cute. That will make telling the real and fake apart. For the second one, the buyer was not aware that it was a fake. We don’t know if he’s going through with the purchase or not.

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