where can I find out

[troop_358_potlatch]

what a patch is worth? A friend told me that one of the patches that I have is worth a lot of money. I would like to see if it is true.

[Twocubdad]

It depends on what you are collecting. I'm not a big, big, patch collector, but I do have an on-going collection of council strips I began as a Scout. There is a price guide for CSP's which you can buy for about $25. The books are updated annually and I think they sell the outdated books for $10 or so. I believe there are similar price guides for the other more popular catagories of collectiables like jamboree and insignia.

 

The big thing is identifying the patch and the biggest part of most of the price guides is cataloguing and describing the patches. For example, the very first Alamo Area CSP, designated T1a, has three bricks in the second row of the dome of the Alamo. It is worth $350. A nearly identical T1b -- with two bricks in the second row of the dome -- is worth a whopping three bucks.

 

If you don't have access to a price guide, got to the Internet and find the web sites of some of the big Scouting memorabilia dealers. Usually, their asking price is pretty close to the guidebooks. Of course they only have the prices of what they are selling, not the whole universe.

 

The third and least reliable method is to try and find your patch on eBay. Be sure to search both closed and open auctions. But it's going to be hard to find your exact patch and the prices will be all over the place. For example, if a patch is worth $3 or $4, but someone needs it to make a set, it's no big deal to bid $10. But that one sale doesn't mean the market value of that patch generally has tripled.

 

 

[troop_358_potlatch]

The patch says america's bicentennial on it.