The HabForum

I've been seeing these pop up on eBay recently and they're going for decent prices. I nabbed this one in a lot of other BSA patches and apparently it slipped under everyone else's radar. The listings all say it's for a boy scout jamboree this year. Odd that it doesn't have boy scouts anywhere on it, though.

Huh. I know there is a Scout Day at the USSRC on 13 October. I know they issue a patch for the Scout Day. I wonder if these got out early somehow or were available in the gift shop for visiting Scout groups over the summer?

SC hall of famer Robert Pearlman at the collectspace.com website had a good theory, he thought maybe this was a giveaway patch to scouts at a national event, as a promotional item instead of an actual BSA event at Huntsville. That makes a lot of sense as it's explain why there was an BSA markings at all on the patch and why it's being attributed to a scouting event as well.

Every scout patch I've ever seen has been embroidered. This one is screen printed...so while it could still very well be for BSA, its origin is probably not with them. Since the squeaky-clean new aquaman logo is on there, I'd be willing to bet this patch was produced directly by Sprocket, for them (or some/any other select group of their choosing). You also never see the Space Camp logo on BSA patches, as Sprocket seems to like to control the items they put their brand on. Boy Scouts or not, I wouldn't be surprised to walk into the gift shop and find this item.

Hotdog wrote:Every scout patch I've ever seen has been embroidered. This one is screen printed...so while it could still very well be for BSA, its origin is probably not with them. Since the squeaky-clean new aquaman logo is on there, I'd be willing to bet this patch was produced directly by Sprocket, for them (or some/any other select group of their choosing). You also never see the Space Camp logo on BSA patches, as Sprocket seems to like to control the items they put their brand on. Boy Scouts or not, I wouldn't be surprised to walk into the gift shop and find this item.

Robert Pearlman's probably right on the money on this being a promotional thing. It's probably made by Sprocket. If the BSA issued it, there'd be either the BSA logo, the words "BSA" or "Boy Scouts of America," or a fleur-de-lis would be incorporated into the design somehow. It's just BSA policy. They usually get around this by embroidering a fleur-de-lis in the background color so they don't screw up the design by making it prominent. But this patch is lacking all of that. Not to mention you can tell by looking at the backing. There could be a BSA certified backing, or a holographic tag under or above the plastic.

I have one of these. No BSA backing, either. It's not a BSA patch.