Bill Mulrenin beat me to this scoop with his blog post last October, but it bears repeating because our trading world can certainly use a comprehensive web site devoted specifically to Council Shoulder Patches (aka CSP’s).

The URL http://cspcorner.org started showing up in my referral statistics, and since it wasn’t an address I was familiar with I checked it out and discovered that the author has great plans towards providing a “one stop” resource for CSP collectors similar to what John Pannell’s OA Images site does for Order of the Arrow collectors.

I know there are already several CSP sites, but each has shortcomings that frustrate me. councilstrip.com has nearly 10K images, but according to it’s front page has not been updated since November. I’m not faulting the webmaster, keeping up with new CSP releases is like trying to count fish in the ocean from a moving boat. The release rate is simply beyond the capacity of one person, regardless of how many helpful people are sending in data. What annoys me about this site is that the author insists upon overlaying a copyright label across the picture of every patch.

shoulderbank.com, published by Kevin Vasey is another excellent CSP site, but as the author points out, initially concentrated upon patches from the Pacific Northwest, and so far only includes about 17 states plus thte Far East Council. In stark contrast to councilstrip.com the pictures of the patches on shoulderbank.com are big, clear, and gloriously free of any overlayed copyright.

Kevin Doyle’s firstCSP.com is a well-organized and documented site with clear and nicely-sized pictures of the first CSP’s issued by Councils. Since it’s mission is far more limited in scope it’s total image archive is numbered in the hundreds rather than the thousands, but it meets its purpose with excellence and remains a vital resource for the topic it covers.

cspcorner.org is currently tracking Jamboree Shoulder Patches (JSP’s) for the 2010 Centennial Jamboree and the author has plans to expand the site to include scans, council details, and more. It looks like development has slowed recently, but I’m hopeful that it will pick up and grow into the site that the author originally envisioned.

Doug Hunkele, webmaster of the excellent Camp Images site, has a new 2010 Blog about the upcoming 2010 Centennial Celebration of the BSA I highly recommend.

The site promises to “… feature all patches produced for the BSA Centennial Celebration.  From the series of patches produced by National down to District Events.  This will include the featured event of the year:  2010 National Jamboree.”

Since we’re still over a year away from the celebration the patches related to it are only starting to trickle out, but it won’t be long before there’s a flood and I salute Doug for taking on the task of documenting them to keep us informed.

You’ll find a link to Doug’s new site in the top center of the Scout Patch Collector’s Base Camp home page under the new 2010 BSA Centennial Celebration heading, which I’m sure will have more links as the event draws closer.