What do you do with all them patches?

[Eamonn]

I'm not a Patch Trader or collector.

But I have been around for a while and been a lot of places.

I have my 1977 World Jambo patch on my red wool jacket. Sadly it's not very straight and the mountains are a bit wonky looking.

When I was a little Lad, I did try and collect all of the County and District patches from all the Districts and Counties in the UK. I'm not sure how far I got!

All this stuff is now living in a few Tupperware boxes that live in an antique blanket box. The only time they come out is when the pile of new patches start to gather dust on my desk.

To be very honest they don't mean very much to me, but too much that prevents me from giving or throwing them away.

I had thought of selling them all on e-bay and donating the money to the Council Campership fund. But I don't trust the Council to abide by my wishes.

So what do you do with all of your patches?

(I do have a camp fire blanket that my mother put together for me many moons ago.)

Eamonn

[Kahuna]

Best bet: stop at the hotel in Fredericksburg where the big-time patch dealers set up and cut the best deals you can before you go home. Of course, you buy retail and sell wholesale, but I still have patches from the 1969 jamboree that are rotting in boxes.

[Eagle92]

Does your lodge have patch auctions at its events for camperships?

 

Also is there anything that you would like to see done that your OA chapter could do? We had a young man pass away in out chapter who was a patch collector. When he died, his mother gave the chapter his patch collector and made a statement that he would have liked to have seen a shelter built in the campsite the chapter uses at OA functions. Long story short, over a 5 year period, yes he had that many patches, enough money was raised to build a shelter at the campsite. Shortly thereafter the council took notice of how nice it was and decided to build shelters at all campsites.

 

Another idea is the campfire blanket. Grant you nto very popular in the areas I've been in, but they are a great conversation starter.

 

Another idea wold be to doante them to a Scouting museum, either local or national.

[moxieman]

I have roughly 2,000 patches from around the world on five blankets. One of those five covers things I've earned, positions I've held, and places I've been. The other four are things I've picked up over the years through trades, some gifts, a few auctions, and fundraiser events (ex. a patch set from the New Orleans Council/Lodge, post-Katrina to help their scouts go to NOAC).

 

I guess you could call it sort of a traveling patch museum.

 

In addition, one retired scouter gave me a brief case filled with patches under condition that anything already in my collection be given away. So, when I'm invited to a cub pack meeting, troop court of honor, etc. to display, that brief case is opened up and scouts get to take one each. Over the years others have contributed to the freeby pile and so I continue to give patches away.

 

As to what will happen to my collection, upon my demise (hopefully not anytime soon) I plan to donate it to a local scouting museum.

 

Believe it or not, I've cut back on trading as the collection is starting to get cumbersome to cart around. Especially, when I'm about to start blanket #6, aka, Stuff I've earned, pt 2, as after 30 years in scouting, my original blanket is just about full.

 

I have also made patch donations to my lodge for patch auctions, proceeds of which have either helped the lodge or the section. I've also put forth patches for door prizes at our district banquets and for other events. I'm not rich. I've simply accumulated a lot over time, a little at a time.(This message has been edited by moxieman)