Scouting Hot Finds Boy Scout Memorabilia
by Jason Spangler
Scouting Hot Finds is a podcast for collectors of Boy Scout memorabilia, Scout patches and vintage Scouting collectibles. Hosted by longtime collector and dealer Jason Spangler, the Santeeswapper, the show explores the history and collecting of Boy Scout patches, Order of the Arrow memorabilia, camp patches, council shoulder patches, uniforms, collections and other pieces of Scouting history. Episodes include audio editions of Scouting Hot Finds live collection unboxings, collector interviews, stories behind unusual pieces of memorabilia, collecting tips, hobby news, buying and selling advice, and conversations about preserving Scouting history. Many episodes originate from live video unboxings on the Scouting Hot Finds YouTube channel, where you can see the patches, uniforms and collections being discussed. WATCH SCOUTING HOT FINDS ON YOUTUBE: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNG9rrc7lS0p9-bLZYxU5Mw" target="_blank" rel="norefe
Episodes
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#112 1934 Eagle Scout Time Capsule + Rare OA Patches | Boy Scout Collections Unboxed
What happens when nearly a century of Scouting history survives inside boxes, scrapbooks, merit badge sashes and old envelopes? In this episode of Scouting Hot Finds, I opened more than a dozen Boy Scout memorabilia collections from around the country — and uncovered some remarkable pieces of...
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#111 15 Boy Scout Collections Unboxed | 400+ OA Flaps & a 1960 Jamboree Flag
What can turn up when you open 15 boxes of Boy Scout memorabilia from collections around the country? In this episode of Scouting Hot Finds, I'm continuing to work through the mountain of unopened Scout collections in my warehouse. We uncover everything from hundreds of Order of the Arrow lodge...
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#110 Uncovering 13 Boy Scout Memorabilia Collections | Rare OA Patches & Jamboree Finds
What happens when you open 13 Boy Scout memorabilia collections that have been sitting unopened for months? This episode of Scouting Hot Finds is the AUDIO EDITION of my first-ever live collection unboxing. I started tackling the mountain of Scout collections waiting in my warehouse — and we...
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#109 Making Rules For Your Boy Scout Collection With Hank Birdsong
I caught up with Hank Birdsong a long time collector in the hobby at the Charlotte Trade-O-Ree. After basically finishing his core OA section flap collection - Hank came up with a very original idea for a new pursuit. He went back to his roots from his first NOAC and started collecting OA names…
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#108 How To Identify and Sort Your Boy Scout Rank Patches
Have you ever looked at your Boy Scout collection and struggled to figure out what the small differences among common rank and position patches mean? In this episode of the show we go into a deep dive on how to identify and sort your BSA rank patches using the leading reference books in the…
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#107 Building A Traveling Scout Museum
This episode is packed with knowledge and an awesome unboxing. Ryan Losonsky returns for the final installment in my interview with him. This time we are talking about nuts and bolts….literally! Ryan has created a 90+ panel traveling Scout museum and in this video we are going to talk shop. The…
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#106 Traveling Boy Scout History Displays
In this episode you will see how Ryan Losonsky has developed his model for a traveling Boy Scout history display that is adaptable to the audience. He also shares ideas for how you can get invited to display which in some ways is a challenge as well. We also discuss the notion that perfection can...
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#105 Sourcing Uniforms For Steven Spielberg's Movie The Fabelmans
OK spoiler alert! Today I'm telling the whole story of how I came to work with a Hollywood Costumer named Danielle to help outfit the actors in Steven Spielberg's The Fabelmans. I took my family to see the movie on Thanksgiving Day. I had really been hesitant to do a video about my involvement...
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#103 Russell Smart Eagle Scout Display
In this episode of the show I am back with some great content. The highlight is an interview with Russell Smart at the Charlotte Trade-O-Ree. He came to the event with an amazing display of Scouting history. His focus was the 20 plus iterations of which merit badges were required for the rank of...
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#102 Patch Trading @ 2023 National Scout Jamboree
Patch Trading at the Jamboree! Listen in to Scouting Hot Finds Live to get the story on visitors and patch trading at the Jamboree from Tico Perez. This episode includes a new giveaway (and the live picking of last week's winner!). You can also catch a number of unboxings. In this episode I try…
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#101 Adult Participation Opportunities for the 2023 National Scout Jamboree
In this episode of the show you can here more from the 2023 National Jamboree Chairman Tico Perez. In this segment Tico discusses innovative ways the BSA has thrown out the old rule book about how a Jamboree is run. This includes the opportunity for ANY Scouter to attend with a troop or on staff....
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#100 2023 National Scout Jamboree with Tico Perez
If you are a Scouting memorabilia collector this is the show for you! This is the first episode of my new weekly show Scouting Hot Finds Live. You will not want to miss everything I have packed into a 30-minute livestream including an unboxing, cool giveaway, interview with the 2023 National…
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#99 2022 Pre-NOAC Trade-O-Ree With Chris Jensen
Chris Jensen is once again hosting the Pre-NOAC Trade-O-Ree and in this interview he shares all the details of the event coming up July 23-25 in Knoxville, TN. The TOR runs Saturday - Monday which means the last day is when all the contingents show up. In the podcast we talk about this bi-annual...
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#98 Camp Book V2021 With Bob Sherman
Version III of the Camp Book II has been published and my guest is Bob Sherman who is the lead author on the project along with Dave Minnihan and Kevin Doyle. This latest version now tops out at 1600 pages identifying each known Boy Scout camp by alpha, state and council. In the interview Bob...
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#97 The History of Cataloging Order of the Arrow Patches with Bill Mulrenin
Order of the Arrow cataloging going back 50 years is the topic of this month’s Scouting Hot Finds Insiders Round Table. Bill Mulrenin served as the New York State Editor on the Blue Book project for the last 3 editions. So in the discussion we take it all the way back to Bill Price books of the...
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#96 Creating Scouting Memorabilia Collecting Guides With Wiatt Williamson
Wiatt Williamson has cracked the code on how to write a Scouting memorabilia guide book. In his years in the hobby he has written over a dozen guides for Order of the Arrow lodges, councils and camps. In this interview he shares the blueprint and makes an offer to share his easy to use template...
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#95 Dating And Identifying Boy Scout Memorabilia With Mitch Reis
Mitch Reis has just published the 5th Edition of A Guide To Dating And Identifying Boy Scouts Of America Badges, Uniform, & Insignia. This book is one of the reference "bibles" that all Scouting memorabilia collectors should have on their shelf. There is hardly a topic that is not covered if it…
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#94 Clothtalk The Original Scout Memorabilia Podcast With Chris Brightwell
Perhaps the first podcast I ever listened to back in 2006 was an ambitious project that was launched by some guys out of Coosa Lodge 50 in Alabama. Clothtalk was their idea for an audio podcast that would focus on the hobby of collecting Scouting memorabilia. For 29 episodes these guys brought on...
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#93 NY State OA Trader Bill Mulrenin
For about 15 years Bill Mulrenin has been a constant on the Internet for the Boy Scout memorabilia collecting hobby. His website at www.NYOATRADER.com is the prototype for what a niche blog site in our hobby should be. As the New York OA Blue Book Editor he created the site to help share…
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#92 Refurbishing Vintage BSA Knives and Axes With Bill Chadek
A decade ago Bill Chadek took a gamble on a Boy Scout pocket knife. He cleaned up a beat up old knife and brought it back to life with elbow grease, sandpaper, and lots of polishing. This was the beginning of a side business refurbishing vintage BSA pocket knives, sheath knives and hand axes.…
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#91 Collecting Early OA Odd Shapes With Russell Smart
For several decades Russell Smart was on a mission. He came up with a simple enough goal. Can I get the first patch issued by the oldest lodge in every state? That rabbit hole of collecting led him to add other needs to the list but eventually he was able to get that impossible collection about…
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#90 Spirit of Jamboree with Doug Schwab
At the 2019 World Scout Jamboree held in the United States Doug Schwab helped to staff the Spirit of Jamboree Museum. In this interview we talk about his experience and the book he published that documented the once in a lifetime display of Scouting memorabilia from the World Scout Jamboree. The...
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#89 Roots: Looking Ahead To Building A Consistent Boy Scout Memorabilia Podcast
The first episode of the Scouting Hot Finds Radio in almost a year should be the launching pad for a real rebirth of the podcast. I know I am guilty of saying that a few times over the last couple of years but I'm laying down roots to make this podcast sustainable. In this episode you will hear...
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#88 Boy Scout History Museums With Rick Stewart
Rick Stewart has been writing a quarterly article for the ISCA Journal on the topic of Scouting museums going on four years now. During a 20+ career as a professional Scouter and more as a volunteer he can also claim to have visited the National Scout Museum at all 4 of its locations over the…
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#87 History of Boy Scout Merit Badge Pamphlets With John Smilek
John Smilek says this will be the year. On the 100th anniversary of the first Boy Scouts of America merit badge pamphlet being published he and other collaborators will publish a full reference guide for collecting this niche in the hobby. The guide will include thousands of pictures and a…
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#86 Patchvault.org Interview With John Athayde
John Athayde and his collaborators on Patchvault.org are ready to turn back control of Order of the Arrow memorabilia listing to the people. With a background in software and a core group of collectors supporting the effort they have expanded the site from it's roots as Virginia OA specific to…
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#85: Scouting History Data Crunching With Mike Clinch
http://www.scoutpatchcollectors.com Mike Clinch is a great example of a Scouter and collector who is willing to invest hundreds of hours of his own time into building something for others. A few years ago he published an amazing two volume set of books detailing in color the merger history of all...
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#84: Teaching Scouting Heritage & Collections Merit Badge With Stuart Tucker
Scouting collectors who have spent time learning about Scouting history have an obvious way to give back to the program. Collections merit badge allows a Scout to take a patch collection and with the right coaching fulfill the requirements. Scouting Heritage teaches Scouts about our movements...
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#83: National Scouting Historian Summit with Topkis and Morley
The National Scouting Historian Summit will take place June 9-15, 2019 at the Philmont Training Center. This week long course will teach over 100 Scouts and Scouters the rules, tools and strategies needed to preserve and share Scouting history in your troop, lodge, council and community. In this...
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#82: Doing A Good Turn With Andrew Silverstone
Andrew Silverstone could teach us all a thing or two about the Scout Oath and Law. When he heard that some Scouts had lost their patches at the 2017 National Scout Jamboree he sprang into action organizing rescue boxes. Using social media he gathered donations and made sure that these Scouts…
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#81: Scott Wheeler 2017 National Jamboree Checklist
Scott Wheeler is a Boy Scout memorabilia collector who has a collection with over 100,000 unique items. The only way he can keep track of all these items is by creating checklists. That has led him to create the best 2017 National Jamboree checklist of council issued items. By Scott's estimation...
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#80: Patch Trading Tips For The 2017 National Jamboree with Nick Wolf
Nick Wolf, the Patch King, has a Top 10 list just for folks headed to the Jamboree. As a veteran trader of several Jambos now Nick has come up with ten important tips he shares with the listeners. I was able to sprinkle in some stories and commentary on Nick's list to give you some good examples....
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#79: Why Collect Boy Scout Patches
In getting ready to host a Boy Scout memorabilia show (we like to call them Trade-O-Rees) I was asked by the troop committee chairman to come give a patch trading class to the Scouts of Troop 33. Episode 79 is the audio of that patch collecting talk that I gave to about two-dozen Scouts ranging...
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#78: Girl Scout Memorabilia Collecting with Becky Byrns
Becky Byrns was the first collector to host a national Girl Scout collectors show back in the 1990s. Now with 15 shows under her belt and another coming up in a few weeks she is my guest on Scouting Hot Finds Radio. Becky and I talk about the unique points of Girl Scout memorabilia including...
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#77: Patch Trading Blanket with Nick Wolf
Today on the podcast I welcome Nick Wolf who many of you know as the "Patch King". After using some customized patch trading blankets at the 2015 National Order of the Arrow Conference Nick set about seeing if he could design and produce a patch trading blanket for the hobby. After six months of...
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#76: 2017 National Boy Scout Jamboree with Program Chair Russell Smart
Join me as Russell Smart shares details on this summer's Boy Scout National Jamboree. As the Program Chairman he has spent many hours planning since the 2013 National Jamboree to iron out the wrinkles and make this summer's event amazing. During July 2017 over 40,000 Scouts and Scouters will...
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#75: eBay Powerseller Nick Loesch - firstcalltx
Listen in to hear the wisdom of Uncle Nick. My interview with Nick Loesch will trace his history in the hobby and get his impressions on how it's changed over the years. Nick attened the 1964 Jamboree as a boy and caught the patch collecting pretty hard. It was at the 1965 NOAC that he burned a...
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#74: eBay Selling Fees
Everyone interested in selling on eBay needs to pay attention to the fees that are going to take a hard bit out of your bottom line. In today's episode of Scouting Hot Finds Radio we are taking a hard look at what it costs to sell on eBay and look at some strategies that might help you take...
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#73: eBay Spring Seller Update For Collectibles
The collectibles category lives on eBay. Amazon? Forget about it! Try doing it yourself with your own website? Good luck! So when eBay updates their fees and policies twice a year buyers and especially sellers need to pay attention. In this episode of Scouting Hot Finds Radio I am going to break...
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#72: Boy Scout Council Hits The Trade-O-Ree Circuit and eBay!
I met Mary Lou Schwarzer at the recent Easley, South Carolina Trade-O-Ree sponsored by Chris Jensen. What makes his encounter interesting is that she drove down from the Blue Ridge Mountains Council in Virginia (http://www.bsa-brmc.org) to unload a lot of her council's old inventory including…
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#71: Patch Trading at the 2015 National Order of the Arrow Conference
I decided to record this episode of the podcast when I got a message from a Facebook friend. Krishna Palani asked, "Can you please offer me some resources and tips for trading patches at NOAC? I'm relatively new to trading and I'm going to NOAC this year." I started to fire off a message back…
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#70: Social Media Selling Strategy With Nick Wolf
The last several episodes of Scouting Hot Finds Radio have focused on unique strategies that people in the hobby of collecting Boy Scout memorabilia have used to feed their habit. Today's episode of the podcast takes the question to one of the young guns in the hobby Nick Wolf of the Connecticut...
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#69: Going Hunting For Rare Books & Memorabilia w/Richard Mori
Richard Mori has been collecting Scouting memorabilia and specializing in rare books for many years. In this interview he reveals a strategy for success that he feels confident nobody can duplicate. What is really interesting about the way that Richard makes money in the hobby of collecting Boy...
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#68: Antique Mall Selling Strategy for Scout Memorabilia With Todd Kelly
When the Boy Scouts of America announced they would be building a permanent Jamboree site in the hills of West Virginia Todd Kelly started making some trips to the "Mountain State" to scope out locations for a Trade-O-Ree. One of the results of that venture was deciding to rent out a booth in two...
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#67: Selling Consignment on eBay Interview W/ Powerseller Angi Diller
Her eBay user ID was a perfect choice several years ago - my_real_job_is_tattoos. Ironically as her eBay business grew she was able to leave behind that "real job" and make a full time living as a work from home eBay Powerseller. Angie Diller is my guest on Scouting Hot Finds Radio and our topic…
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#66: 2015 National OA Conference NOAC Trade-O-Ree w/ Chris Jensen
Chris Jensen of Streamwood Inc. has been in the Boy Scout memorabilia hobby since the 1960s and as a full-time memorabilia dealer he has hosted more than forty trade-o-rees including ones for the National Order of the Arrow Conference (NOAC). In August of 2015 the Order of the Arrow will be…
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#65: Collecting Boy Scout Camp Patches With Bob Sherman CBIIV2 (2014)
My guest is Bob Sherman who is a well known figure in the hobby of collecting Boy Scout memorabilia. Some have taken to calling him the "camp patch man" as he has been writing the camp patch column in the ISCA Journal for a whopping 22 years now. The focus of our interview tonight is discussing…
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#64: Building A BSA Council Memorabilia Website w/ Boyd Williams
When Boyd Williams attended the 1981 National Boy Scout Jamboree and traded a few patches he probably never thought he'd eventually become one of the well-known collectors in Tennessee. However, after moving back home to Franklin, Tennessee in 1994 and getting back active in Scouting he soon…
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#63: Collecting BSA Cancer Awareness Patches
Justin Carlisle began collecting Boy Scout cancer awareness patches about the time that his Order of the Arrow chapter issued a patch to help raise funds for the local chapter of the Susan G. Komen Foundation in Greenville, SC. Soon he discovered that several OA lodges had produced memorabilia to...
About this show
Scouting Hot Finds is a podcast for collectors of Boy Scout memorabilia, Scout patches and vintage Scouting collectibles.
Hosted by longtime collector and dealer Jason Spangler, the Santeeswapper, the show explores the history and collecting of Boy Scout patches, Order of the Arrow memorabilia, camp patches, council shoulder patches, uniforms, collections and other pieces of Scouting history.
Episodes include audio editions of Scouting Hot Finds live collection unboxings, collector interviews, stories behind unusual pieces of memorabilia, collecting tips, hobby news, buying and selling advice, and conversations about preserving Scouting history.
Many episodes originate from live video unboxings on the Scouting Hot Finds YouTube channel, where you can see the patches, uniforms and collections being discussed.
WATCH SCOUTING HOT FINDS ON YOUTUBE: <a href="https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCNG9rrc7lS0p9-bLZYxU5Mw" target="_blank" rel="norefe
Hosted by
Jason Spangler