Scout Patch Collectors

100 Years of Eagle Scout Patches

In August of 1912 the first Eagle Scout Award was earned by a Scout from Rockville Center, NY named Arthur Eldred. Eventually more than two million Scouts would follow in his footsteps over the next century plus and achieve Scouting’s highest award. For many years the late Dr. Terry Grove researched and published the history of the Eagle Scout Award. Terry’s interest in this part of Scouting history sprung from noticing that the Eagle medal awarded his son in 1983 was different than the one he received as a boy in 1956.

in 2012 Terry along with Ron Oslin and Jim Erickson did a live presentation of their research on the history of the Eagle Scout patches. 2012 was the centennial of the Arther Eldred’s accomplishment and the beginning of this storied history of Scouting’s highest award. The presenters gave me permission to sit up front and film the slide show with their audio in the background. Terry also shared the the PowerPoint which is available as a free download at this link 100 Years of Eagle Scout Patches.  This is an excellent resource by the true experts in this area of Scouting memorabilia.

For collectors this resource is very helpful to understand the various major types of the Eagle Scout patch. The numbering system that the authors use is slightly different than the one used by Paul Myers which is another major reference used by Scouting memorabilia collectors. My advice would be to not try and track down every single variation of thread and stitch differences that the presenters uncovered. Some of those are a bit like finding a needle in a haystack. But with a reasonable amount of work, time and money you can assemble a very nice representative collection that would be an impressive frame to take to a Court of Honor.