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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