What is your opinion or success with selling Boy Scouts items?
Do you have a good amount of success with selling Boy Scouts patches, etc? What is your opinion on selling them today compared to 10, 15 years ago? Is it still a stable market? I believe stamps have dropped off? If I'm wrong, let me know. Coins have not lost collectors. Any thoughts on what genres have faded?
6 comments
squinkercat59
·3 years agoI have some BSA items, like everything else, the older or rarer it is, the quicker it sells. Much of a huge bunch of it I recently got at an estate sale was local, so I put it in a local antique mall where I have space, and it has been selling steadily. I don't list the ones on Ebay that there are already dozens (if not hundreds!) listed of. A lot of younger kids collect BSA patches, as I have discovered, and they are excited to get a patch for a dollar or two, even if very common, which would be too inexpensive for me to list on Ebay. Lots also sell better sometimes, than single patches or pins.
m60driver
·3 years agoI have sold BSA items off and on and was also an authorized BSA dealer in my old brick & mortar store. I find that the real vintage items from the 1960s and before sell OK. But the more recent items and the more recent patches are a slow sell for little money. But no collectible market is stable. I am just glad I no longer have to deal with the cub scout moms every fall.
ajs_coins_and_alchemy
·3 years ago2010 Boy Scouts Commemorative Silver Dollar sells just fine 👠but thats more coin than boyscouts.
femmefan1946
·3 years agoNo idea on Boy Scout items, but the philately has changed.
If anything the number of stamp collectors has increased.
What have disappeared are the B&M stamp shop and the local stamp club.
The internet saved philately as a hobby.
No longer tied to local shops, material from all around the world was suddenly available.
Add to that a new collecting demographic with deep pockets and different interests.
Women.
When DH opened his stamp shop back in the late 70s most of the customers were men and occasionally a father or grandfather would bring a boy in and tell him how to collect stamps.
By the time we closed in 2014, women made up about 20% of our customers, and they collected topicals- birds, ships, butterflies, maps. Sometimes very specialized. But they were just as likely to buy online as in our shop. And they rarely belonged to local clubs.
I must say that the most active members of DH's club at the Seniors Centre are the women , who are putting together collections. Meanwhile the men are sifting through the "free stamps" table.
DH also mentioned that the kids he saw in the shop in the 21st century were girls who were bringing in a parent and showing the parent what they needed for their own collections (again usually topicals).
The part of the hobby which has dropped away is the "completist" who wants to fill every spot in his one country album.
The upsurge has been in highly specialized collections, whether the postal stationery of Tuvalu or hoopoes.
kenilworthkollector
·3 years agoI have found, is that it depends on what you are selling, older quality stuff is always good. Right now, this years Jamboree will be hot for a few months, as it is just finished.
I collect, trade, buy and sell, scout items, and I pass on alot of items I could add to my collection because they are way overpriced on Ebay, I can pick them up locally or at a show for 1/4 the price, and not pay for shipping.
cardxcraft
·3 years agoWhen I offer postal history or airmail covers franked with Boy Scouts issues, it sells fairly quickly.
The airmail cover and philately genre have definitely faded over the years. You can see this with the massive amount of material on the market.
I believe they'll always be a market for stamps, Boy Scout items, airmail covers, but they won't hold the same monetary value. Its the basic law of supply and demand. Fewer and fewer collectors as the years go by but the same amount of material remains. Of course, they'll always be a high-end market.
I've actually put some serious thought of getting out of the postal history business.