Scouting Hot Finds Boy Scout Memorabilia

Scouting collectors who have spent time learning about Scouting history have an obvious way to give back to the program. Collections merit badge allows a Scout to take a patch collection and with the right coaching fulfill the requirements. Scouting Heritage teaches Scouts about our movements history while also getting them to take an active role documenting their own troop and local history. Stua...

The National Scouting Historian Summit will take place June 9-15, 2019 at the Philmont Training Center.  This week long course will teach over 100 Scouts and Scouters the rules, tools and strategies needed to preserve and share Scouting history in your troop, lodge, council and community.  In this interview the two co-leads Bill Topkis and Jeff Morley share the details of this first of it's kind e...

Andrew Silverstone could teach us all a thing or two about the Scout Oath and Law.  When he heard that some Scouts had lost their patches at the 2017 National Scout Jamboree he sprang into action organizing rescue boxes.  Using social media he gathered donations and made sure that these Scouts first experience with trading patches wasn't a disappointment.  In my interview Andrew tells the story of...

Scott Wheeler is a Boy Scout memorabilia collector who has a collection with over 100,000 unique items.  The only way he can keep track of all these items is by creating checklists.  That has led him to create the best 2017 National Jamboree checklist of council issued items.  By Scott's estimation there are around 2000 items issued for this Jamboree including some amazing sets.  In our interview...

Nick Wolf, the Patch King, has a Top 10 list just for folks headed to the Jamboree.  As a veteran trader of several Jambos now Nick has come up with ten important tips he shares with the listeners.  I was able to sprinkle in some stories and commentary on Nick's list to give you some good examples.  The bottom line is that anybody going to the 2017 National Scout Jamboree at the Summit Bechtel Nat...

In getting ready to host a Boy Scout memorabilia show (we like to call them Trade-O-Rees) I was asked by the troop committee chairman to come give a patch trading class to the Scouts of Troop 33.  Episode 79 is the audio of that patch collecting talk that I gave to about two-dozen Scouts ranging from fresh Tenderfoots to high school aged Eagles.  I know that many other people have been in this sit...

Becky Byrns was the first collector to host a national Girl Scout collectors show back in the 1990s.  Now with 15 shows under her belt and another coming up in a few weeks she is my guest on Scouting Hot Finds Radio.  Becky and I talk about the unique points of Girl Scout memorabilia including badges, dolls, jewelry and more.  Since I've been collecting Girl Scout stuff for about four years I've e...

Today on the podcast I welcome Nick Wolf who many of you know as the "Patch King".  After using some customized patch trading blankets at the 2015 National Order of the Arrow Conference Nick set about seeing if he could design and produce a patch trading blanket for the hobby.  After six months of developement he released his blanket which features room for up to 30 different flap/CSP shaped patch...

Join me as Russell Smart shares details on this summer's Boy Scout National Jamboree. As the Program Chairman he has spent many hours planning since the 2013 National Jamboree to iron out the wrinkles and make this summer's event amazing.  During July 2017 over 40,000 Scouts and Scouters will descend on the Summit Bechtel National Scout Reserve in West Virginia.  As the Summit is the world's premi...

Listen in to hear the wisdom of Uncle Nick.  My interview with Nick Loesch will trace his history in the hobby and get his impressions on how it's changed over the years.  Nick attened the 1964 Jamboree as a boy and caught the patch collecting pretty hard.  It was at the 1965 NOAC that he burned a Blue Heron Lodge flap to make a point about boys ripping off each other while trading.  After taking...

Everyone interested in selling on eBay needs to pay attention to the fees that are going to take a hard bit out of your bottom line.  In today's episode of Scouting Hot Finds Radio we are taking a hard look at what it costs to sell on eBay and look at some strategies that might help you take advantage of the quirks of selling on eBay including whether or not you should have an eBay store. Find mor...

The collectibles category lives on eBay.  Amazon? Forget about it!  Try doing it yourself with your own website?  Good luck!  So when eBay updates their fees and policies twice a year buyers and especially sellers need to pay attention.  In this episode of Scouting Hot Finds Radio I am going to break down the changes eBay is rolling out to the marketplace on May 1, 2015.  For the most part it's a...

I met Mary Lou Schwarzer at the recent Easley, South Carolina Trade-O-Ree sponsored by Chris Jensen.  What makes his encounter interesting is that she drove down from the Blue Ridge Mountains Council in Virginia ( http://www.bsa-brmc.org ) to unload a lot of her council's old inventory including camp patches, OA and special issue CSPs.  In talking with here I also learned that she has an official...

I decided to record this episode of the podcast when I got a message from a Facebook friend.  Krishna Palani asked, "Can you please offer me some resources and tips for trading patches at NOAC? I'm relatively new to trading and I'm going to NOAC this year." I started to fire off a message back when I realized that this was probably a topic that a lot of Arrowmen were curious about.  I'm estimating...

The last several episodes of Scouting Hot Finds Radio have focused on unique strategies that people in the hobby of collecting Boy Scout memorabilia have used to feed their habit. Today's episode of the podcast takes the question to one of the young guns in the hobby Nick Wolf of the Connecticut Yankee Council and Owaneco Lodge 313. Nicknamed the "Patch King" by his own lodge brothers because at s...

Richard Mori has been collecting Scouting memorabilia and specializing in rare books for many years.  In this interview he reveals a strategy for success that he feels confident nobody can duplicate.  What is really interesting about the way that Richard makes money in the hobby of collecting Boy Scout and Girl Scout memorabilia is that he does it the old school way.  You won't hear the words Inte...

When the Boy Scouts of America announced they would be building a permanent Jamboree site in the hills of West Virginia Todd Kelly started making some trips to the "Mountain State" to scope out locations for a Trade-O-Ree. One of the results of that venture was deciding to rent out a booth in two different antique malls in nearby Beckley, West Virginia.  Along with his partner at the time Todd got...

Her eBay user ID was a perfect choice several years ago - my_real_job_is_tattoos.  Ironically as her eBay business grew she was able to leave behind that "real job" and make a full time living as a work from home eBay Powerseller.  Angie Diller is my guest on Scouting Hot Finds Radio and our topic is essentially sourcing.  For Angie she runs a business totally based upon consignment with regular p...

Chris Jensen of Streamwood Inc. has been in the Boy Scout memorabilia hobby since the 1960s and as a full-time memorabilia dealer he has hosted more than forty trade-o-rees including ones for the National Order of the Arrow Conference (NOAC).  In August of 2015 the Order of the Arrow will be holding it's 100th Anniversary NOAC at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.  Streamwood wil...

My guest is Bob Sherman who is a well known figure in the hobby of collecting Boy Scout memorabilia.  Some have taken to calling him the "camp patch man" as he has been writing the camp patch column in the ISCA Journal for a whopping 22 years now.  The focus of our interview tonight is discussing the brand new edition of the Camp Book II that has just been published and is available as a PDF eithe...

When Boyd Williams attended the 1981 National Boy Scout Jamboree and traded a few patches he probably never thought he'd eventually become one of the well-known collectors in Tennessee.  However, after moving back home to Franklin, Tennessee in 1994 and getting back active in Scouting he soon caught the patch collecting bug.  As an active Scouter in the Middle Tennessee Council and Wa-Hi-Nasa Lodg...

Justin Carlisle began collecting Boy Scout cancer awareness patches about the time that his Order of the Arrow chapter issued a patch to help raise funds for the local chapter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation in Greenville, SC.  Soon he discovered that several OA lodges had produced memorabilia to help find a cure for cancer and he was hooked.  With his own father falling a victim to cancer he dec...

During the centennial of the Boy Scouts of America in 2010 John Soresen got the idea to create a traveling display that he calls Scouting History on Wheels.  In my interview with him today John shares the story of how he put together the display and what he is trying to share with the audience.  Perhaps the most unique thing he has done is assemble a patrol of Scouts in vintage uniforms to perform...

In the conclusion of my interview with Brad England the coufounder of the Scout Patch Collectors Facebook Group we reflect back on how the group has impacted the hobby.  Brad and I also talk about how in many ways the group is an anomaly for Facbook in that is is uber-active.  Finally we make a wish list for tools that we lack as admins of the group. Find more Scouting memorabilia content and all...

Brad England and I literally launched the Scout Patch Collectors Facebook as a direct result of this radio show two years ago.  I noticed Brad swapping Boy Scout patches on Facebook and lined him up on an interview to share his strategy.  Out of that conversation was born the idea to create a group on Facebook devoted to trading patches and the group was born.  In this interview the cofounders loo...