Friday Scouting Hot Finds Newsletter March 25, 2016

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I was contacted by a troop leader a few weeks ago that had an interesting dilemma. His troop was given a collection of over 100 patches from an older member of the church. So when he started looking at the items and did some homework he discovered that this was a treasure trove of 1950’s era OA patches! The collection could potentially go for $10,000 with the troop getting an incredible investment for equipment and activity money. I agreed to help him promote the sale that is happening under the Scoutmaster’s eBay name.

As you can see from above the collection includes a super rare R1 on felt from Wetassa Lodge 227. All of these auctions end on Sunday and this one already has 2 bidders at over $1,800. Not everything in the collection is on that level but it’s nice to have that to lead off the sale.

The collection is going to be sold in two rounds so the Scoutmaster doesn’t get overwhelmed trying to keep up with the orders. The first batch is up now and ends Sunday. I think after he takes a week to clear out the sales and will then launch the last batch. I thought this was a great way for a troop to get some money so I jumped at the chance to help market the sale.

If I was smart I should have negotiated a price on the Koi Hatachie flap which would have been a nice one to put in my collection. Just yesterday someone posted pictures in the SPC Facebook Group of a batch of OA fillers that were picked up. I can see the temptation to have a filler fake flap versus the $1000 real one if it’s just going to sit in a notebook on the shelf.

I explained to the SM that a strategy I had used with success in the past was to make a PDF catalog with nice clean pictures and links to the listings. It took a little work but he scanned in the patches and researched the min bids using OAimages and closed listings. I put it all together into a very visual 15 page PDF that you can open and quickly browse through. Each auction has an eBay Link so you can see how the bidding is going. I explained to him the OA market isn’t what is was 15+ years ago but that many of these will sell the first go around at auction.

My big sale this weekend over at my eBay store is on 300+ OA Conclave patches. I’m running a 35% off sale to move out some of these tough Carolina OA pieces from what is today the Cardinal Conclave and Dixie Fellowship. Both of these events are scheduled for later in April so I figure the interest might be about to peak.

 

CLICK HERE TO OPEN THE MARCH 25, 2016 ISSUE OF THE SCOUTING HOT FINDS NEWSLETTER

 

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