Scout Patch Collectors

Sunday Scouting Hot Finds Newsletter December 13, 2020

Call me crazy but I think t-shirts are an under appreciated category of collecting. Maybe it’s because t-shirts almost never survive 40+ years later whereas people put their patches in a cigar box for safekeeping and they survive untouched. Maybe it’s because there are no reference books on them and even in lodge histories I see that document the smallest detail of a thread direction it’s as if the t-shirts never existed.

I always tell people that collectors are interested in things that were worn on the uniform like patches, pins, slides, neckerchiefs. But if you really pull back and think about it – a t-shirt is a silkscreened item issued for an event that was made to be worn. Hmmm….they often have the exact same logo as the patch. So if you would collect the matching neckerchief why not the t-shirt?

I collect every t-shirt ever issued by my home lodge. I think I have 99.9% of them. So you can imagine my joy when I discovered shirts from my camp that I’d never seen from the 1970s. I also got a unique color printing of a 40+ year old contingent t-shirt that I had never seen or heard of. In there was a mint condition XL shirt from the event where I was inducted into the OA. For me this was a treasure! Now I am very motivated to reconstitute my old website and share some of this history with anyone interested.

This weekend on eBay I have over 100 OA auctions ending tonight mostly from high lodge numbers 500+. This is almost the end of a really nice collection I have been selling in 2020. On ScoutPatchHQ I have a dozen really good OA issues from the 1950s including a super rare First Flap.

The smartest thing I will do on my way home today is stop by my warehouse and unload the coffee mugs, t-shirts etc that I got in this collection. The rule in my house (and the key to a happy marriage) is the Scout stuff stays out. So yeah dragging in boxes of mugs would not go over real well! I’m sure a few of you know the feeling.

CLICK HERE TO OPEN THE DECEMBER 13, 2020 ISSUE OF THE SCOUTING HOT FINDS NEWSLETTER