Scout Patch Collectors

I was at Philmont in 1966 and had ended my trek. Sitting at the base camp canteen a scout approached me and asked to trade. He wanted to trade OA Flaps having never done so before. Having just completed my ordeal in the Zit Kala Sha Lodge, all I had was the one I received at the end of the ordeal. I had not sewn it on yet so i said yes and traded 1:1. I cant help but think that I got the better part of the deal as i gave him my S-4A and received his KOO KOO KU HOO 161 S-4. A bit of a disparity given todays market. But that is what memories are for . i am sure if the deal were reversed It would be as valuable to me, as my first trade.

My dad was in Scouts and when I was a cub he would buy me extra patches so that by the time I even got into Boy Scouts I was collecting council expo patches. When I really got the bug was at my induction into the OA. It was our Order of the Arrow week of camp and I remember that just about all the new guys in my campsite all caught onto it like wildfire. We all had perhaps 10 patches between us but those got traded around many times in the campsite that week. Of the people in that campsite five of them went on to build very respectable collections and three still have them today.

Two people Tripp Clark and Matt Delk. I was a CIT at Camp Barstow in 1992 and didnt have a clue about patches. I picked up one of Tripp Clarks books from 1987 and started reading the history of our council. It also had black and white copies of all the known council issues. That book created the spark. Later that summer I was working at the rifle range and Matt Delk was the staff member. I was sitting on the railing before the scouts arrived looking at Tripps book. Matt had already been collecting for years and had a great collection. I was talking to him and pointing out interesting patches in the book. I remember pointing to the Muscogee R1. I asked Matt, what is that? He laughed and said, “thats a Muscogee 5″ round, you will never have one of those!” Continuing on with the book I pointed at sever 1930s era Camp Barstow patches asking him to tell me about them as well. Again he laughed and said, “those are Barstow felts, you can forget about getting those!” He had just poured gasoline on the spark that Tripp and his book had created. Within one year I was trading Matt Delk the Muscogee R1 that I now had two of, for some Camp Barstow felts. Matt is a good friend of mine but we are definitely rivals. We are still very competitive in our collections to this day.