Just as I blogged earlier that we may never know what all was issued for the 2010 Jamboree, I am thinking there is a corollary. If you don’t get these now, will you ever be able to get them? Right now is the best availability of these. Prior to the Jamboree, eBay had around 74,000 items in the Boy Scouts category. Actually it had dropped as low as 64,000 in late July. Now it is over 81,000 after getting as high as 84,000. We were partly to blame for this bump. 🙂

In our trading we also picked some older JSPs but not many. Most of what we got were from 2005 but we even got some back to 1997. The older JSPs turn up from time to time but very few collections are coming out. Thus, if you are trying to fill in older issues you might find some local ones at local TORs or have to do an awful lot of searching on eBay and dealer sales lists for a long time.

I can tell you this is true about Jamboree neckerchiefs too. I have been picking them up for a few years now. I am more likely to find older, pre-1973, neckerchiefs than I am newer ones. The problem is the same as with modern JSPs. They are dispersed amongst 32,000 participants and are sitting in their closets/attics/basement. There they’ll sit for a generation or two.

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Marin Council did Star Wars again (they were the ones behind a Yoda set a few jamborees ago that were the rage of the Jamboree). They have three troops that each have a JSP and then each patrol has their own patrol medallion (a total of 12). Below is a picture of six of them. Some are confusing these as their JSPs but their JSP is a standard shape and is also a dye-sub patch.

These patches were priced at $200 for the 12 before the Jambo and $250 per set after. I don’t have a production quantity yet.

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I’m now woefully out of date as about two weeks ago I was talking with Bill Loeble. Bill along with Steve Austin are the primary authors of the Council Shoulder Insignia book, the standard catalog for CSPs and other shoulder patches. Bill said they have over 400 different CSPs listed for 2010/100th anniversary of Scouting. The reason I’m saying woefully out of date is that after this conversation we had a Scout-o-rama. In talking with one of our DE’s he figured that our local council, Great Sauk Trail, is up to seventeen (17) CSPs for 2010. Ouch! If you have information about your or other councils, please post here or e-mail Bill (ask me for his e-mail as I don’t want him to get spammed by web-bots).

Bill also reported that he’s figuring there will be over 2,000 JSPs. I mentioned that we thought that the number of JSPs was going to top out back in 1997 after all of the council mergers. Boy were we wrong. Bill figures there were around 1,200 JSPs at the last Jamboree even though we were down to 310 councils.

There will likely be over 5,000 council/lodge issues for 2010 between CSPs, JSPs, and OA patches. One could spend their lifetime collecting this year alone (although it would make for an interesting collection).

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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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Scouting Magazine has started a new column called “This Old Patch”, sort of a take off on the PBS series “This old house.” Collector Kelly Williams of Krelman Co. provided them with an interesting patch, the JSP for the 1960 contingent from Yosemite Area Council, CA. Kelly just sent me an e-mail that was sent to him with the pictures below asking, tongue in cheek, if I’d seen them. Its amazing what Photoshop can do.

This is for the part of the story that shortly after this patch came out, the tree had fallen over (actually as I understand it the top came down, the tunnel remained.)

The article made mention that the tree was in Yellowstone Park which it was not.

These did cause a bit of a double-take for me but they were doctored images. Cute. 🙂

It looks like it will be an interesting column. They contacted me about some ideas and material for future columns and we’ll be helping them out. I see it as being good for the hobby as Scouting Magazine goes out to nearly a million registered Scouters. If you have some ideas for what you’d like to see, pass them on to me.

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I just fielded an e-mail from a friend asking about the value/price of the shoulder arcs from the 1935 National Jamboree. These were the first “JSPs”, i.e., jamboree shoulder patches.

Each troop had their own arc. The Roman numerals indicated the region. The capital letter indicated the sub-camp. The number indicated the troop. They are made of red felt with white printing. Quite often these can be found unused because the jamboree was canceled but also many have moth holes from their storage over the years. Each participant got two badges.

These used to be a consistent $125 in price. Then they went to $225. Now they seem to be consistently in the $280 – $380 range. They are truly scarce. It used to be that folks collected just one for their jamboree collection. Now there are several that are trying to put region sets together, i.e., one from each region. And, there are a few that are going gonzo trying to get one from every troop! It makes sense though as we collect JSPs from every council for most of the modern jamborees so why wouldn’t some collect the shoulder arcs the same way. If this trend continues, then these could well be underpriced. But also, this is for a very sophisticated and well heeled collector to go after these that completely.

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Historically Puerto Rico Council’s JSPs have been one of the sought after JSPs at Jamborees. Limited supply and limited number of troops. I was sorting through some of the items I picked up and came across what I think is the 7th JSP from this council. They certainly traded these items as if it were times past when there were few patches but I’m thinking this time was different and that these patches were everywhere. It will be interesting to see the final tally for this council (at least interesting in that I’m not compulsive enough to try and get every issue.) It will certainly be a pain for those who do try to collect them all.

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