Emphasizing the transient nature of the internet, two web sites that archived images of Jamboree Shoulder Patches have disappeared, victims of the shutdown of their host, GeoCities.

Developed by Michael Bungo of Great Trail Council, the 2001 and 2005 JSP web sites were pioneers in collecting and presenting pictures and information about jamboree shoulder patches.  Sadly, archive.org has few remnants of the sites available available via their Wayback Machine. The 2001 JSP site was archived several times up until 2005. The 2005 JSP site was not as fortunate, with only two visits to archive its contents.

I tried contacting Michael to see if he was able to preserve a copy of his sites before the GeoCities shutdown, and to see if he might consider uploading it to an alternative host, but the yahoo email address I had for him is no longer valid.

So while I remove the links to these sites from the Scout Patch Collector’s Base Camp I am once again reminded how impermanent a web site can be and encourage those who develop them to keep local backups and consider ways the information might be preserved for future generations.

The Blue Book: Order of the Arrow Standard Insignia Catalog was first published in 1996, and for over a decade has been the primary reference for OA collectors. Published by the American Scouting Historical Society every two years to coincide with the National Order of the Arrow Conference, the first 5 issues were printed in bound volumes. The sixth edition had become too large to print economically, and so was supplied in electronic form, either on CDROM or available via download.

From its inception the Blue Book has always been a nonprofit effort that depended upon the contributions of hundreds of collectors and the collaboration of  regional,  state, and national editors to assemble the data associated with over 50,000 insignia items listed.

The 2 year publishing cycle was interrupted this year. The rights to the the Blue Book were included in the sale of the Morley-Topkis collection to the Las Vegas International Scouting Museum but no effort was made to publish an update to the Sixth Edition.

Bill Mulrenin recently reported on his blog that the rights to publish the Blue Book have been acquired from the LVISM by Roy More of The Scout Patch Auction, whose plans for the publication are being shared on a new web site, oabluebook.com.

There is encouraging news there that efforts are underway to produce a new edition, and discussion about what changes are being considered. Since the Blue Book is a vital reference that OA collectors depend upon regularly, there are several links related to it on The Scout Patch Collector’s Base Camp, now including the new oabluebook.com site where you can follow the development of the next edition.

Jason Spangler has launched a new blog at 2009noac.com just in time for the 2009 National Order of the Arrow Conference to be held at Indiana University from August 1-6. Jason plans to report on the patch trading going on at NOAC using this blog as well as by microblogging through tweets. For the latter option, he’s also set up boyscouttweet.com so Scouts from around the world can update everyone via their mobile phones.

John Pannell is avidly tracking the Lodge emblems being issued for the upcoming 2009 National Order of the Arrow Conference on a special web page at oaimages.com, so I’ve revised the link that previously pointed to the 2006 NOAC patches to point to the new page.

Not only are the patches for NOAC now more likely to be a set containing a flap and matching pocket piece, it seems that more Lodge’s than ever have decided to issue multiple versions to expand their fundraising.

Above image was submitted to oaimages.com by Larry K. Mitchell

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.

Congratulations to Philip Goolkasian, 17 year old Eagle Scout of Sequoia Council in Fresno CA who is the winner of the national logo contest for the upcoming 100th anniversary of the BSA! Philip’s design was chosen from over 4,000 entries from US Scouts around the world, and he got to finalize his design by working with renowned designer Kit Hinrichs at his Pentagram Design studio in San Francisco. According to this newspaper article Kit is a cloth collector himself, though it’s not patches he pursues. Rather, it’s American flags, and he’s authored a book on the subject as well. He reportedly has over 3,000 stars and stripes artifacts in his collection.

Personally I think the design of the new logo is awesome, and am happy that it was created by a 17 year old Eagle Scout (with some help from another, slightly older Eagle Scout) instead of selected from a bunch of marketing samples provided by various ad agencies.

And although I can’t see the computer in the pictures on this page, the keyboard, mouse, and display all appear to be Apple products, so I’d venture a guess that the 100th Anniversary of the BSA logo was “made on a Mac.”

If you have eagle eyes you may have noticed a small change to the introductory text on the Scout Patch Collector’s Base Camp home page. “The Scout Patch Collector’s Base Camp is a directory of helpful internet resources for pursuing our hobby of collecting and trading Boy Scout memorabilia” was changed to remove the word “Boy.” This was necessitated by the recent addition of two excellent web sites related to Girl Scouting.

The Vintage Girl Scout Museum, a site by Nancy White, is exactly what it sounds like, with pictures and descriptions of all sorts of uniforms, emblems, and medals, as well as historical information about Girl Scout programs around the world.

The Girl Guide and Girl Scout Patch Collecting Directory is a wonderful resource for current or aspiring collectors of Girl Scout or Girl Guide patches. Jessica Cangiano has done an amazing job of assembling dozens of links to helpful internet sites along with expert advice on starting a collection, finding lists of councils, and more.

Why the expansion to include Girl Scouts and Girl Guides? It seems only natural to include their program which promotes similar values and purposes, and I have a daughter who entered Junior Girl Scouts this year after entering the program as a Daisy, then spending several years as a Brownie. My wife (a volunteer leader of my daughter’s troop) has pleaded with me not to infect my daughter with my patch collecting fever, no doubt afraid that our abode will be overrun with even more colorful embroidered bits of cloth!

The first version of the Kecoughtan Lodge 25th anniversary flap reversed the black background of the standard flap with a white one, and replaced the silver border with a black one.

A reorder of this flap resulted in a smaller version with no stitching around the flags. This flap was originally classified as “QS1″ in the first edition of the Blue Book, indicating that it was not an official lodge issue, based upon reports that it was rejected by the Lodge upon receipt and returned to the manufacturer. Later editions of the Blue Book record it as the “S4.5″ issue, apparently granting it status as an official lodge issue.

The final version of the 25th anniversary flap changed the lettering of the “W’s” and the Lodge number from white to black, and were the same size as the original S4 version.

Note: I am testing a cool new WordPress plugin called Highslide Photopress that zooms thumbnail images when they are clicked on. Try it with the images above! For more information about Kecoughtan Lodge emblems and history, please visit my web site http://kecoughtan.com