Boy Scout Category Analysis – 2010 Jamboree Spike
Thursday, September 23, 2010
We've all seen the big spike in the Boy Scout category after the wave of 2010 Jamboree patches hit the auction boards. With this blog post I attempt to answer the question - How Big Was It? Taken as a total the 8 weeks after the Jamboree saw $1.59 million dollars in sales in the category. I can't break down how much of that was strictly 2010 Jambo stuff. However, anecdotally in the Hot Finds Newsletter I noticed the big sellers laid out for the first several weeks after the event. I had a tough time finding much vintage or OA items to highlight in those issues. Check out this post-Jamboree issue for an example of that, eBay Scouting Hot Finds Weekend Rewind August 8.
90 Days Total Sales in the Boy Scout Category
90 Days of Total Sold Listings in the Boy Scout Category
So what was the top of the spike? The week of August 16th saw a total of $330 thousand in memorabilia sell. That's easily 3x what the typical week in the category brings in. You can see by the 6 month charts below that there was a three week slide in July leading up to the Jamboree. The spike starts right at the beginning of August and runs the strongest for two weeks. You should note that even in mid-late September the category is elevated with higher than average sales.
6 Months of Total Sales in the Boy Scout Category
6 Months of Total Sold Listings in the Boy Scout Category
I've included a two-year snapshot for one simple reason. I wanted to compare the 2009 NOAC and 2010 Jamboree head-to-head and see what the selling on eBay looked like. Are you as surprised as I am? There are some striking similarities. In both cases the three weeks leading up to the event saw a decline. Is July just a naturally slow month in our category? In both cases the peak was about two weeks after the event. However, there are a couple of stark differences. The first is the drop off after the spike. For the 2009 NOAC the best week was August 17 with $151 thousand in sales. After that it quickly dropped off to the point that the next 8 weeks averaged about $100k. The Jamboree has shown much longer staying power with the sales clearly falling but at historical highs in the weeks after the peak. The other very obvious difference is the scale. The peak of the Jamboree (the week of Aug 16) was more than twice that of the similar peak for the NOAC.
2 Years Total Sales in the Boy Scout Category
2 Years Total Sold Listings in the Boy Scout Category
I invite comments and observations from anybody who reads this post. Please note that to eliminate spam I have a hard filter on all comments and they must be approved by the webmaster before they post to the blog. I usually try and update those every day though.
 OA Lodge 193 Ashwanchi Kinta F1 RARE FIRST FLAP  US $356.01
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 2004 Simon Kenton Council Service Patches Rare Complete set of 27 US $50.99
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 OA Lodge 104 Flap Occoneechee YS1 Extremely Rare US $69.99
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