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 camp patches, OA and special issue CSPs.  In talking with here I also learned that she has an official BSA council account on eBay and regularly sells items on that marketplace as well.  Mary Lou graciously agreed to let me interview her to find out her impressions of the TOR and tips on how it works for a non-profit to sell on eBay. 

The interview runs about fifteen minutes and I think it really should give Boy Scout councils and other non-profits some ideas for how to leverage the millions of potential customers on eBay.  What if you could sell on eBay with no listing or final value fees and get reduced shipping costs?  Listen in while she also explains how sellers can use the service to donate money directly from their auction sales to the non-profit of their choice.  What if councils could reach out to local sellers and have them 10% of their gross eBay sales as a contribution? 

This is episode #72 of the podcast built for the Scouting memorabilia collecting community and I have big plans to keep going in 2015.  I hope to have more guests, more topics and with the largest National Order of the Arrow Conference ever taking place at Michigan State you can believe this is going to be a good year for the hobby. Find more Scouting memorabilia content and all of my podcasts at http://www.scoutpatchcollectors.com.

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 when I realized that this was probably a topic that a lot of Arrowmen were curious about.  I'm estimating that only 1/5 youth at the 2015 NOAC will be veterans of the last conference in 2012.  So very few of them have had any experience going to a NOAC and might be curious for some tips just like Krishna.

I spent some time writing an outline and just hit record.  I talked for almost 45 minutes straight through without taking a break or hitting the edit button.  This might be the first time in years that I've just recorded my stream of thought and never edited a single word in post-production.  However, I'm extremely happy with the result.  I think the content in this show will be very valuable for any Arrowmen (youth or adult) that has never attended a National OA Conference.  What you get here is my unfiltered opinion and I'm sure I'm going to make a few people mad with me for that reason.

Find more Scouting memorabilia content and all of my podcasts at http://www.scoutpatchcollectors.com.

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 Yankee Council and Owaneco Lodge 313. Nicknamed the "Patch King" by his own lodge brothers because at such a young age he seemed to be loaded with tons of cloth, Nick has developed a unique social media strategy to turnover his inventory.

I have been buying/selling for a long time and I got lots of great ideas from listening to Nick share his strategy. In many ways it runs counter to what the typical trader in this hobby would think. Nick would rather sell 100 $1 patches than 1 $100 patch.

Many people on Facebook and especially in the Scout Patch Collectors Facebook Group will know Nick from his Cyber Monday Deal sheet. He just wrapped up his 3rd annual sale and was able to surpass what he sold from the first and second combined. However, his strategy doesn't center around a 1/year offer. He has a talent for sourcing patches as well. Somehow while vacationing in Hawaii with his family he returned to CT with thousands of patches from a Scout shop in CA.

If you listen to the show and have some feedback please post it below. You can find nick on Facebook and I've included a copy of his most recent Cyber Monday Deal sheet here. He also has a website and you can find him on eBay. Find more Scouting memorabilia content and all of my podcasts at http://www.scoutpatchcollectors.com.

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 Scout and Girl Scout memorabilia is that he does it the old school way.  You won't hear the words Internet or eBay mentioned in this interiew.  However, that's not to say that there aren't some nuggets that any collector can take away and relate to.

This episode represents the third in a series I am doing on ways that people have taken their passion for a hobby and figured out how to make it pay for itself by earning a little money.  In Episode #67 we focused on how to sell on consignment and in #68 we talked about having an antique mall booth.  I hope that you will enjoy this episode of the show just as much. 

Richard Mori lives in New Hampshire but can be found traveling around the country to shows throughout the year.  He has established a wide network of contacts both in the Scout collecting community and among book dealers. Find more Scouting memorabilia content and all of my podcasts at http://www.scoutpatchcollectors.com.

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 different antique malls in nearby Beckley, West Virginia.  Along with his partner at the time Todd got into the business of selling Scouting collectibles at an antique mall.  It's been almost four years since he dipped his toes into this strategy and Todd is now doubling down on this idea.

Tonight on Scouting Hot Finds Radio I have the second show in a series on interesting ways that people in the hobby of Boy Scout memorabilia collecting can turn over some of their inventory and make money.  Sure we all know about selling on eBay but in this series I am uncovering some of the lesser known strategies that people are using.  We've already covered selling on consignment in Episode #67 of the podcast. 

As Todd and I both have antique mall booths we cover a lot of ground in this interview.  You can hear everything from what the basic financial arrangement is with the owner of the store to tips on what questions to ask and what to avoid.  You'll hear how "clutter" is not a four letter word in this strategy and the advantages of having a 7-day a week brick and mortar location that you don't have to staff yourself.  We also cover a tricky situation that you want to avoid and the secret formula for knowing if your antique booth is worth all the trouble and effort. 

Find more Scouting memorabilia content and all of my podcasts at http://www.scoutpatchcollectors.com.

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 is essentially sourcing.  For Angie she runs a business totally based upon consignment with regular pickers that bring her items to sell on eBay.  This interview is the first in a series of shows that I'm going to publish describing strategies that people in the hobby can make a little money to feed their habit.  I got my real start on eBay as a consignment seller about 10 years ago so this interview brings me back to my own eBay roots.  As you listen to the interview we dive into how Angie runs her business including talking about unique sticky points with selling on consignment.  How do you determine the consignment rate?  What happens with returns? How do you handle your consignors to make sure there are no bad surprises?  These are all questions that Angie and I dive into during this interview.  As for pickers she has some war stories to share in the hot Michigan estate sale market.  If you enjoy this episode be sure to tune in over the next few months as I do more show topics about making money selling memorabilia.  Find more Scouting memorabilia content and all of my podcasts at http://www.scoutpatchcollectors.com.

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 holding it's 100th Anniversary NOAC at Michigan State University in East Lansing, Michigan.  Streamwood will be running a NOAC trade-o-ree for the three days leading up to the event on August 1-3.  In this interview Chris Jensen goes over all the details for the Big Monster NOAC TOR.  We also talk about his impressions as to why there are so many new TORs popping up on the calendar. If you want to know more about the TOR visit his website at http://www.streamwood.net. Find more Scouting memorabilia content and all of my podcasts at http://www.scoutpatchcollectors.com.

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 the brand new edition of the Camp Book II that has just been published and is available as a PDF either through instant download or CD on eBay.  The book comes in at 1250 pages but you can still purchase it on eBay from my partner there RadarBSI.  One of the key things about the Camp Book II is that is also the best reference piece for the history of Scouting councils.  It is packed with information about early teens and twenties councils that most people don't even know existed.  Towards the end of this interview I reveal a pair of special bonus items that I am committing to give away with every sold copy of the Camp Book II V2 (2014).  You'll just have to listen in to hear what I've got up my sleeve. Find more Scouting memorabilia content and all of my podcasts at http://www.scoutpatchcollectors.com.

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 caught the patch collecting bug.  As an active Scouter in the Middle Tennessee Council and Wa-Hi-Nasa Lodge 111 he started collecting everything local.  Along the way his passion for that local stuff led him to dig deep for council and district activity patches - something that many collectors ignore.  In fact one of the reasons he states for getting into that niche is that others were'nt interested in it.  So back around 2005 even though he admits to not being a computer genius he started building a website to document his collection and preserve the history of the activity patches from his council.  http://www.mtcpatches.com was built using a now defunct software program so when it crashed in 2013 he got help from a local Scouter and set about building it back from scratch.  Today, the website has neat district maps and every council and district patch that he knows of.  Boyd has even expanded to add a category for the Grimes Canoe Base and the shoulder insignia of the MTC.  In our interview Boyd and I talk about all this and I share how his site is an inspiration for me and should be to others. Find more Scouting memorabilia content and all of my podcasts at http://www.scoutpatchcollectors.com.

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 help find a cure for cancer and he was hooked.  With his own father falling a victim to cancer he decided to write a reference guide for others Scouting memorabilia collectors who were interested in this niche.  Teaming up with Brett Estrade who runs Patchtrends.com he put together a guide that has all known issues including pricing data.  In this episode of the Scouting Hot Finds Radio Justin and Brett share the story of this new collectors guide.  For other Scouting memorabilia collectors who have notions of writing a similar collecting resource guide Brett Estrade is willing to partner with them by offering his database of prices realized from the Boy Scout category of eBay.  At the time of this episode that catalog holds over 2 million price points. Find more Scouting memorabilia content and all of my podcasts at http://www.scoutpatchcollectors.com.