Last night on the Digital Cracker Barrel hosted by John Pleasants I got to share a presentation on collecting Senior Scouting memorabilia. There were about 20 collectors on the Zoom and although I ran way over the suggested 10 minute time frame I got some good response afterwards. Larry Lane turns these into edited YouTube videos so you can catch all of them on his channel.
Vintage Scouting Memorabilia On eBay
I started collecting Senior Scouting memorabilia after I kinda gave up tracking down all the new contrived rarities that were being issued among the OA lodges in the Carolinas. But I already had a pretty good start without even knowing it.
Through all years of buying collections I never tried to sell any insignia. I just didn't speak the language and was afraid that I would take it to a TOR and someone would cherry pick me clean. So one big project about 10 years ago was to sort out the tubs of merit badges, rank patches and yes Senior Scouting that I had been accumulating.
I got out the reference books sitting on the shelf and started sorting and more importantly learning what the different types of merit badges were, seeing how Paul Myers categorized the rank patches and for Senior Scouting how Jim Clough broke out the different position and advancement patches. Turns out I had a great starter collection without spending any money at all!
I am winding down my live auctions going into the week before Christmas. Today I have 96 live auctions with some of those ending tonight and the rest within a few days. On ScoutPatchHQ the 1950s collection I'm selling has 24 live auctions with 1/2 of those ending tonight including a nice first flap.
In my talk I also thanked Russell Smart for authoring a June 2002 article in the ISCA Journal that really helped me get started but also was my cheat sheet for the PowerPoint I built. When it was over John jokingly asked "when is the book coming out?". Honestly if I were to ever tackle that topic I would want to go into the memorabilia but also what a young man had to do in order to earn the awards. As a Camp Director I'm really tuned into Scouting program and some of those classic programs like Air Scouts and the Silver Award program could teach us a thing or two.
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.
