From our Area newsletter yesterday:

We have a new name! Michigan Crossroads Council!
Approved by our Transitional Board last week, the new name of our statewide legal entity will be known as the “Michigan Crossroads Council,” and with this final name our naming process is complete. Special thanks to Dick Stilwell and his committee that have worked for months through this process. The Michigan Crossroad Council is made up of four Field Service Councils which include:
• President Gerald R. Ford Field Service Council will serve the Gerald R. Ford and Scenic Trails legacy councils.
• Water & Woods FSC will serve the Tall Pine, Lake Huron Area, Blue Water and Chief Okemos legacy councils.
• Southern Shores Field Service Council will serve the Southwest Michigan and Great Sauk Trail legacy councils.
• Great Lakes Field Service Council will serve the Great Lakes legacy council.

Got this in from my Area newsletter: The Boy Scouts of America collaborated with the American
Welding Society, BSA Health and Safety Committee, and OSHA members to create the
Welding merit badge. Scouts can begin working on this merit badge now and the new pamphlet
is available in your local Scout shop. For more information and merit badge requirements
please click here.

But, recently I traded some e-mails with a former Scout of the council. Here’s some information he passed on:

Hello Roy-

  There is a national park where the scout camp was in Panama, Parque Nacional Chagres. I think this was once a US military training area. The Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute used to send biologists there to find snakes and birds.  There were lots of limestone cave formations and it rained quite a bit.

    The population of Americans in Panama had always been fairly transient, what with military families rotating in and out regularly, and other employees on short term assignment. After the 1979 treaties went into effect, the population of Americans living in Panama for longer term declined fairly substantially. If your job were eliminated, your family was not eligible for Canal Zone Government housing, so the friends and neighbors started leaving as the treaties were implemented.

    There was a strong sense of community among the people who had lived there for years and years which has been maintained with the Panama Canal Society. You may be able to follow up on your questions by starting at http://www.pancanalsociety.org and looking for contacts there.

-Doug

Here’s the TOR flyer

2012_Dallas_TOR_Flyer_1_

8′ tables are sold out but there are some 6′ tables left. I’ve written before how this is the best annual, national show. As the flyer indicates, this is the 9th National ISCA show. Along with the TOR there is a full schedule of educational sessions, ISCA Board meeting, display competitions (see one by Kelly Williams from last year here) or (the one on Sea Scout ship insignia with Sam Fairchild here) and more.

Here’s the Saturday agenda:

9:30-10:30AM ISCA will have it’s annual meeting for members and prospective members. Come and meet our officers and Board members and discuss where ISCA is going in the future.

 

10:30-11:30 Alan Goldsmith and Dr. Dan Miller, two of the nation’s foremost experts on collecting Philmont patches will present on this well loved collecting area. Come and hear some of their patch stories.

 

11:30-1PM The judges, led by Dave Thomas, will judge the displays and award the ribbons to the winners. Come and see the displays brought to the Trade-O-Ree by your friends and colleagues.

 

1:00-2:00 Terry Grove, author of “A Comprehensive Guide to the Eagle Scout Award” and other well known books in our hobby will teach a class on Eagle patches. He will be joined by Ron Oslin and Jim Erickson as co-presenters.

 

2:00-3:00 Kelly Williams will present on owning and operating a patch company. Many of us have thought about how cool it would be to make Boy Scout patches but few of us have made it happen. Come and hear from one who has.

 

3:00-4:00 Roy More, owner of “The Scout Patch Auction” and seller of several of the largest and most famous scout memorabilia collections will discuss Blue Book 2.0. Come and hear what Roy has to say!

 

From Terry Grove,

Ron Oslin, Jim Erikson and I just finished an amazing day of comparing and sharing about Eagle patches.  This was a follow up to the “summit” we had in Philadelphia a couple months ago.

The new list splits the old Type 2 cut edge patches into two types

• Type 2 – silk thread
• Type 3 – cotton thread

We also have identified cloth used from 1924 through 1955.  The cloth with cut edge is clearly different and the patches have been embroidered unto these materials.  These materials are identified as –

• pre-depression
• heavyweight with printing on the back
• depression cloth with printing on the back
• heavyweight cloth without printing on back
• lightweight without printing on back
• fine twill
• war cloth

Lastly, we have determined that there are five colors within the cut edge patches;

• tan
• olive
• green
• white
• blue

The rolled edge patches are pretty straight-forward.

I am attachingour proposed new listing of Eagle Scout patches for your review and comments. (ED: We’ll post this at the bottom)

Our plan is to roll this out at the Dallas TOR.  Then print it in the ISCA Journal with a first article in March and then a second article in June.

Finally, the list will be included in the rewrite of my Eagle book which will be published in time for NOAC 2012.

So we have plenty of time to tweak the work and make sure we have all the pieces identified.

Terry is hosting a session at the ISCA Dallas TOR this coming weekend. You can e-mail Terry here or visit his web-site.

Eagle Scout Pocket Patches 2003

UPDATE – NEW FILE (old one deleted as this replaces 6:35pm CST 1/18/2012)  Eagle Scout Pocket Patches – NUMBERED SYSTEM

He’s also working on the Eagle Scout knots. Again from Terry:

As you know I am working on rewriting my book with new info to bring it up to date for 2012.

Tomorrow I am hosting a party to work on the Eagle patches. (ED: See the results above) I expect that I will be rolling out a new numbering system at the Dallas TOR.  I have spoken to you about this before.  I am excited.  I will be sharing with you the results of the conference and asking for your support.  I trust you will attend my workshop in Dallas.

I am also working on the Eagle knots.  I am working with Gary Whitman out of Texas.  He has done a yeoman’s job in identifying all knots and knot devices.  My interest is in the Eagle knots only for the book.

The reason I am writing is to ask a huge favor.  I am noticing that you are placing Eagle Knots on eBay.  Therefore you must have a bunch of them in stock.  My favor is this, would you please put all your Eagle knots in one place and either send them to me to look over as I work on the knots OR bring them with you to Dallas and allow me to work through them there.

I need some knots and thus would purchase whatever I need out of your pieces.  I would also like to see them to make sure that we have covered all the different types and variations.

I know it is a lot to ask and much trust, but I am hoping our years of friendship will allow you to make a decision to help in one way or other that I have suggested.

I am attaching a couple excel spread sheets to show you the work that I am doing.  It will give you an idea of the many varieties.

Knot Boards – 1

Knot Boards – 2

If you are interested in this topic and want to provide input, contact Terry. He’ll enjoy hearing from you as he wants to make this the best. (And as an aside, if you don’t agree with Terry, let him know!)

Here was my response.

Quick answer – probably not much. Its a ‘needlebreak’ unless you can find a whole run of these (that is multiples). Its basically an error that got through quality control or more likely the patch company passed on as much inventory as they could convince a buyer to pay for even if it has a flaw.

These are not like stamps and coins with a process that creates perfect pieces every time and an inspection process that culls errors when they do crop up.

Thus, for patches, such flaws not only don’t command a premium but usually are valued at less than a correct specimen. Again, the exception if their are multiple examples of the same difference and then it becomes a variety and might be quite valuable if collectors want the variety.

At best its a curiousity piece. A piece without any bird would be more desirable from a collector’s perpsective.

In the lot the seller pictured some of the Scout’s membership cards. Previously I wrote about fun side collections that may not cost much, nor be worth much, but are any way fun. The card shown was a Hinode Goya 498 (consistent with the Air Base). The picture showed multiple cards but they were covered up. When I received them one of the cards was a Baluga 538 membership card. Although rarer than the flap it certainly is not as valuable (and no, don’t suggest that I could make my collection by getting a bunch of blanks and writing names in – not kosher and not confirmable.)

I’ve scanned it in here as actually this is a rare item. It provides wonderful full-color drawings of the uniforms. In Chief Scout Executive James West’s introduction he notes that leaders are obligated, in setting the example, to only use official BSA uniforms (and with profits obviously flowing to the National Office.)

It shows some rarely seen items – the Lumberjack Shirt and the Scout Mackinaw coat. It also lists the types of cloth available including Melton (see my video with Paul Myers about some of these early types of cloth), two weights of Serge, Whipcord, and Gabardine. On the back it indicates that a leader could get made-to-measure, i.e., custom-fitted, uniforms. All in all, very trick IMHO.