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.

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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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The Dallas Trade-o-ree is the best super-regional swap event for Scouting memorabilia. One of the features is their display contest. Collectors bring out some of the rarest and most interesting items to share with the show attendees. (BTW – The 2011 show is January 21-21. See the flyer. Be there if you can.)

For the 2010 show, Kelly Williams, President of Krelman Co., won “Best of Show” with is display of the military influences on the early Scouting program. This is a little known piece of history that he has well researched but even more so he has tracked down the memorabilia that is over 100 years old. It also speaks to what I am seeing as an increasing, positive trend in our hobby. It is not just about putting together a collection of items but reconstructing history through the items.

Here’s a video interview we did with Kelly at the show.

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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.

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The Scouting Century Foundation’s display of Sea Scout ship medallions and flag ship fleet patches won “Best of Show” at the recent 2009 Dallas Trade-o-ree. We caught up with the Foundation’s Executive Director Sam Fairchild to discuss and review for you the contents of this display. See the pod-cast below.

Sea Scouting is the oldest specialty program within the BSA. It started in 1913 and continues to this day. It has its own highly distinctive and coveted insignia and memorabilia. Some of its most distinctive badges are ship medallions, youth designed badges, for each Sea Scout unit. Also, starting in the early 1930s through the late 1940s there were national and then regional and local competitions for the best ships. The Foundation now holds what we believe to be the best collection in the country. Sam wanted us to be sure to note that Kelly Williams, President of the Krelman Co. originally built the collection and in the past year worked with the Foundation to move it to their holdings.

Here’s our interview with Sam.

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At this year’s Calumet Council Memorial Day TOR, Bruce Richardson put on a display of his Region 7/Northern Wisconsin Canoe Base collection. It is probably the most complete collection of these. Bruce shared with us some of the history and why he has found this to be such a fun area to collect.

Bruce also maintains a wonderful web-site on Region 7 Canoe base but here you can hear him describe the history and background about this memorabilia.

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One of the neat aspects of the Calumet Council Memorial Day trade-o-ree is their display section. TOR organizers Jim Scherbarth and Swoop Dellamano arrange for special displays each year from area collectors. Bob Cylkowski provided a display of some of his Far East Council memorabilia. It is probably the most complete collection of these items in the country. I’ve seen some of these patches before but not all of them Further, Bob knows more about the history of these patches than most so we interviewed him so the rest of the hobby can have this information.

Bob also brought his Region 13 patch collection for display. Region 13 was never an official BSA designation for a region which makes it somewhat notorious 🙂 in collecting circles. The symbol in the center showing “13” on top of a group of “C”s translates into “Region 13 across the seven seas.” Pretty punny.

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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.

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As part of the ISCA sponsored trade-o-ree in Dallas this past month there were a series of educational sessions. Silver Buffalo recipient and long time collector Dr. Hal Yocum presented one on re-enactment of Baden-Powell, the founder of the Boy Scouts. We thought you might enjoy what Hal has learned over the years and recorded a part of his presentation.

Hal points out that many youth in the program today don’t know who BP was or would recognize him. For over twenty years now he has played BP at various Scout functions and Woodbadge training courses. Click on the video player below to start.

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