Senior collector Paul Myers of Goshen, IN was at the recent Calumet Council Memorial Day Trade-o-ree. Paul is a former editor of the Trader magazine in the 1960s. In the 1990s he wrote a regular column for ASTA, the America Scout Traders Association, which merged with NSCA to form ISCA the national group today. At the TOR Paul was handing out a compilation of the articles he wrote for ASTA. It is now contained in a PDF below. It covers over 75 topics of Scouting collectibles. Not in depth necessarily but my guess is that even veteran collectors will learn something knew from going through these pages.

The topics include:

• Amaquonsippi trail patches
• US Grant Pilgrimage patches
• Lincoln Pilgrimage patches
• Contest medals
• Henderson Award System
• Belt Stencils
• Colored Background Service Stars
• BSA Anniversary Week
• Ribbon Pin Bars
• 100% Duty
• Standard Church Troop Bars
• Original Twelve Regions
• OA Chapter Flaps
• Early Registration Cards
• Scout Emergency Units
• Recruiter Strips
• Scout Diaries
• Boy Rangers of America
• District Badges
• Region 7 Hoe Down
• Sweater, swim suit, hat and jacket badges
• Veteran Emblems
• Explorer Top Awards
• Presidents Awards & Quality Unit
• SeniorScout Titles
• Civic Service
• Overseas Travel Badges
• Service Library
• WW 1 War Service Medals
• National Service Camps
• Boy Scout Bands
• Tenure in Scout Camp
• Service Troops
• Jamboree Staff Positions
• Jamboree Participation Awards
• Jamboree Contingent items
• Jamboree Shoulder Identification
• 1950 Jamboree Prototypes
• Variations in Jamboree Patches and Neckerchiefs
• Jamboree Region Items
• Strengthen the Arm of Liberty Program
• Take Me Home Folders
• Scout Straight Knives
• Scoutmaster’s Key
• Cub Scouting
• First Class Hat Pins
• Patrol Identification
• Folding Pocket Knives
• OA Chapter Badges
• Scout Rings
• Pin Back Buttons
• State Strips
• Early Camp Honor Societies
• Philadelphia District Badges
• Region Standard Camp Badges
• Philmont Contingent Patches
• Merit Badges
• Boycraft Co. Booklets
• 10 Year Program Award
• Sea Scout Ships

Boy Scout Memorabilia Information

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A friend set me a link to a current eBay listing for a 1937 camporee patch from California.

Now in general, any patch dated prior to 1940 in BSA memorabilia is pretty scarce. One would think this would be especially true for council activity patches. The exception to this is for California councils. There are several. They come up regularly. Not sure why this is. As I replied to my friend:

Not seen this before but what’s interesting is that there are a fair number of 1930s era California council activity patches. More so than many other areas of the country. Not sure why as CA wasn’t what it is now.

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Due to picking up the Clay estate and subsequent car problems I missed this year’s BSA National Meeting.  Well I’m getting reports back and the one that pops up for patch collectors is that we’re going to three (3) regions down from four. Not sure when and not sure the structure. I’m sure we’ll get filled in soon enough. One may probably want to put away some of the region patches but not too many. This isn’t the hottest area of collecting.

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Its now official, Detroit Area Council and Clinton Valley Council (Pontiac, MI) have now merged. The new Scout Executive is John LaRoush(sp?) the former Assistant Regional Executive from the Western Region. As I hear more, I’ll be sure to post. The council has not chosen a name yet but I’ve heard mention of “Southeast Michigan Council”, similar to there being a Southwest Michigan Council.

On a somewhat related note, our Area Director just took the position of Scout Executive for Portland, OR. We wish him well. Its been a turbulent year here.

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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.

[display_podcast]

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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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I love it when these new websites that picture patches come up. I can pour over them for hours, I love to see stuff I’ve never had a chance to look at before.

Bill Lahman from Florida has been working on a great one for all the different era’s of Region insignia. Roy posted a link to it further down in the WebLog if you wanna take a look.

I never collected Region items really but I’ve always liked them and always payed pretty close attention to them over the years. I’ve been able to help Bill a little bit and it’s been a real pleasure to share what small knowledge I had with him.

This is one of those areas in our hobby that was red hot years ago but very few people really know much about today. Back in the 50’s 60’s and even early 70’s if you had all the Region patches you were a big time collector. A lot of them were restricted to professionals only so were super hard to get ahold of. The first photo page of the first book on collecting Scout badges (The Wabaningo Emblem Handbook) doesn’t picture the all powerful OA patches, it pictures region stuff. That’s how important it was to collectors back in those days.

In a collection Roy just bought there were three photographs from an early professional Scouters conference (probably 20’s vintage). In all three there were Region armbands visible of which I have never seen any!!! Apparently Bernie had a Region 2 one and somebody out in CA at least knows what the Region 12 one looked like but there was a Region 6 one that had never even been mentioned anywhere. Just goes to show you that what we know about vintage insignia isn’t all there is to know. This stuff is all out there guys, we just have to pay attention, do our digging, and root it out.

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Bill Layman is working on a reference web-site for region patches and insignia. Its worth a look.

4/2007 update – this site seems to no longer to be active. We’ve tried to contact Bill to find out what’s up and get no reply. Anyone else know anything more?

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