Tuesday morning and I'm finally back on my feet after about 24 hours of driving a lap around the entire peninsula of Florida and home to participate in a camp trade show for two councils in south Florida. Next year it might be time to ditch the rental car for an airplane ticket.
Vintage Scouting Memorabilia On eBay
While in FLA I did meet a Scouter who knew me from the patch world and we had a good laugh. It's funny how in a lot of ways the world of active Scouters and old patch collectors don't meet too often. I've learned the hard way it's difficult to be active in 2 units and work at a summer camp while trying to be a memorabilia dealer during the day.
So guess what was the biggest hit at our table promoting Camp Barstow? At the end of my 60-second elevator talk if there were Scouts present I would grab the top book off a stack of library edition 1940s-1960s merit badge pamphlets. I would say something to the effect of your gift for visiting our booth is this 1945 Athletics Merit Badge book. Man the big smiles I got were priceless. I also handed out mint copies of the 1988 9th Edition Scout handbook. You would have thought I just gave them a twenty dollar bill.
Thursday night I do it all over again but this time a lot closer to home. The Palmetto Council (Spartanburg, SC) is having a camp expo since they are not operating a summer resident camp. I've got a few new wrinkles for the table based on what I saw other camps doing down in Florida.
The reaction to the news that the BSA Supply Group is coming to the Charlotte TOR has been humbling. A lot of collectors sent me replies to my announcement sharing their excitement over seeing that development. I have been mailing business cards promoting the event in every eBay order I ship (sorry if some of you have received multiples!). Soon I'll have 1,000 fliers printed and start getting those out to the local Round Tables, OA lodges and helpful dealers in NC and SC that have agreed to help promote the event as well.
I am sticking with the auction strategy on all my eBay accounts which means virtually every night having auctions scheduled to start and end. That also means I have a constant flow of shipping to keep up with which is what keeps the lights on. My goal is to schedule out the entire month of October in that fashion which will be a huge goal if I can reach it.
Keep Calm And Scout On,
Jason Spangler Hot Finds Newsletter
In Charlotte, North Carolina I have an antique mall booth that is filled with nothing but Scouting stuff. I call this location my clearance center because I've marked down everything to move. A lot of what you will find there are items that are too bulky to easily ship from an Internet store. The booth is located in The Sleepy Poet which is a well established antique mall on South Blvd in Charlotte. The mall is open 7-days/week year round. So the next time you are in the area come check it out.
