Scout Patch Collectors

Sunday Scouting Hot Finds Newsletter July 10, 2022

I did a quick check today and there are over 529k items in the Boy Scout category of eBay. Wow! Either that means we have a lot of collectors out there or people are really trying to move their Scout collections!?

Some of us can remember the days when the entire category was like 20k items. I don’t know what is fueling the spike but I think there are so many new issues being made that there is such an opportunity there. Some pundits thought that when the new limits came out where everyone selling over $600 per year was getting a 1099 from the IRS would dampen the marketplace. Either a lot of people didn’t get the memo from Congress or else it just didn’t matter.

I know I have been really working hard the last two years to grow my store inventory. As of today I’m sitting on 64k listings which makes up about 12% of the market in the category. On vacation this week my wife talked to me about what are my business goals. Now that she works for a start-up in Charlotte she speaks that language. That was really a question I didn’t have an answer for. I honestly don’t have a 5-year plan. Just keep growing incrementally and keep doing what works I guess!

I have 175 live auctions running on event patches from all over that are 50+ years old. If it was issued before I was born that’s vintage to me. I figure that these items are good ones to run during July when things tend to cool off in the category.

My family just returned from a week long vacation to Fripp Island in SC. We had lots of beach and pool time and I managed not to get sunburned. Was that because (as my wife says) I stayed out of the ocean? But it was a welcome trip after a month at Scout camp. But the big surprise was when I got home I had a present waiting on me. Troop 300 from South Florida sent me an espresso pot so that I could keep making the Cuban coffee that their leaders taught me to love when they were at Barstow. Now how great is that! Coffee makes the best cultural exchange gift!

CLICK HERE TO OPEN THE JULY 10, 2022 ISSUE OF THE SCOUTING HOT FINDS NEWSLETTER