Destry has been trading e-mails with ISCA OA columnist Bruce Shelley regarding something Destry discovered recently while antique hunting. He came across a can of Swift Premium lard, fortunately empty. What jumped out at him was the logo for the company is exactly that of a patch that surface a few years back and was attributed to Suriarco Lodge 239.

Some background. Suriarco is derived from the home council  “Suwanee River Area Council” out of Florida. Records indicate that the first OA lodge there was named Suriarco. Up until about ten years ago, this lodge was not known to have any patches or issues such as neckerchiefs.

Then the following patch surfaced (see front and back below):

The possibility of this being a Boy Scout Order of the Arrow patch from a lodge with no known issues could turn a piece of cloth from being a curiosity into something worth thousands of dollars.

Here are examples of the Swift Premium Company’s logo at the time. The exact same “S”, arrow, and red-white-blue colors although laid out differently.

Swift & Company Logo on Fort Worth Building

As Bruce noted:

Interesting, but not conclusive. I wonder if the badges had been worn on
uniforms of delivery people or something?

And a tub of lard, which the patch might turn out to be as well:

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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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At the recent Pittsburgh TOR we hooked up with Virginia-based collector John Ortt. John brought his collection of lodge totem pins. This is a specialty collecting area because of their rarity. John provides some background (information about the first OA jeweler Hood starting in 1920 with these through the merger with Caldwell Jewelers in 1945 and their stopping production in 1973.) John points out that a challenge in this collecting area is we don’t know what we don’t know, i.e., who issued what when?

Previously we’ve written about the museum display at the National Order of the Arrow Conferences where collector Bill Topkis has displayed his lodge jewelry collection, the best in the country, with over 200 pieces. We figure John’s collection here is in the top 5 with around 30 pieces. For OA collectors to have more than 2 or 3 pieces is very rare.

Postscript – The opportunity for education, sharing and fellowship is one of the great aspects of trade-o-rees. If you have a chance to visit one, we recommend that you do so. The video has a fair amount of hub-bub from the TOR even though we were off to the side but things were so busy.

Here’s something not in the video – a close-up of the order form John has in his collection.

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In our periodic eBay surfing we noticed the sale of what was listed as “BSA OF AMERICA NENTICO LODGE 12 X1 PATCH MEGA RARE – NR.”

Although we sell tons of stuff on eBay we actually don’t have the time to surf it much or maybe because we’re selling so many items we don’t have the time so we weren’t paying attention to this listing until after it closed. Its a $3 bill. Close but not right. It ended up at $810. A fraction of what a real one sells for, and to us, it seems a lot for a fake for one’s collection. The give away is the back although the front is wrong too.

The seller apparently had offered this previously as his listing makes lots of references to prior contacts he had. He provides many caveats (like he does not know Scout patches – but he knew enough to put a lodge name to a patch that has none). He offers a refund if done in 3 days (awfully short in my opinion). There are no postings of comments/contacts he’s had.

I’ve added it to OAbluebook.com. We’ll get it over to oaimages.com too. We have to continue to educate collectors. The Detroit Institute of Arts currently has an exhibit of fakes that have fooled museums. The exhibit was even written up in the New York Times. There are many cases of fakes passed off as real for a lot more money than Boy Scout patches bring so our hobby is not the only one to get burned.

12 ZX1 fake.

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We got a preview of the OA Mysterium while they were setting up. A previous post had some stills, here’s a little video to give a taste of some of what is in this special exhibit.

[display_podcast]

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Sam Fairchild through his Scouting Century Foundation is putting on a special museum display at the Jamboree. Now the Foundation has significant holdings but it was needing a few pieces for their displays. Sam flew in and we went through my camp patch collection to help fill in a few holes. Particularly we were matching up camp patches as best as we could that were contemporary with the formation of the the various lodges.

We also provided some patches for other areas of the display:

Explorer Service Scout Honor Guard for Mackinac Island

Segregated Scout Camp in Central Florida Council

Canalino Lodge 90 Sun Dance Camp 1948

Red Jacket Council - merged in 1939

While we were working on this collector Rick Hubbard of Iowa drove in to personally deliver some incredibly rare, vintage Jamboree staff armbands (see the cell phone picture below)

The loan was made a local restaurant. We got some interesting looks from the wait staff as we carefully laid out these armbands.

The display at the Jamboree will be the most extensive of its kind. Not to be seen at the National Museum and of a different take than the best permanent display which is at the Las Vegas International Scouting Museum.

Over at the Collections Merit Badge  & ISCA booth we’ll be smashing pennies again, technically called ‘elongates’ for the cost of a penny (or free if you don’t have one as a Scout is prepared and we have a supply of pennies.)

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Destry was recently back home in southern Illinois visiting with family and friends and doing some patch digging. Among the things he picked up was an original printing of the prices realized from the sale of the Don Dennison Order of the Arrow collection in 1970. Don was the sponsor/organizer of the Amaquansippi Trail and Trade-o-rees back during that time period. This trail and the TOR brought folks in from multiple states away. It was one of the most popular trails in the area and their patches are still actively collected.

I scanned in the print-out. See the PDF in the following link:

Prices Realized from sale of Don Dennison OA collection 1970

This was pre-Blue Book, as most of today’s collectors know the Blue Book, and pre-Arapaho. Actually there was a Blue Book that Dave Leubitz sold around that time. It contained lodge names and numbers and the types of issues they issued but no detail and nothing on sequence (although the way the shapes were listed implied the issue sequence as we knew it at the time.) Thus in the listing, you don’t see ‘F1 first flap’ but you do see F c/e (cut-edge) with a border color and background color that allows you to infer the issue.

There were very few patches that sold over $100. Some were:

The lodge 8 Unilachtigo solid round fake at $117.76. Go figure. Its around $25 today. A 47 Hanigus R3 was the most expensive at $150. More than the 155 R ($110), the 177 Victorio F1 at $46.77 (remember this was only a 6 year old patch at the time). A 448 Wapagoklos with a needlebreak sold for $137.50 and a 526 Nahak sold for $126.

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One of the fun things about this hobby is that there are surprises even after four decades of collecting. A new one on me was a recent eBay offering. Someone had taken some lodge and conclave neckerchiefs and made them into a blanket. I’ve seen this done before many times. But… someone cut up the blanket and made the pieces into hot pads! Now that’s different.

So, when you think you’ve seen it all, you probably haven’t. Any out there want a bunch of Scout neckerchiefs to start the newest collecting craze – Boy Scout oven pads? Its going to be hot! (Ouch.)

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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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