New York OA Trader

Want to learn more about Scouting around the world? A source I never considered was Wikipedia. Wikipedia describes itself as”

Wikipedia (pronunciation ) is a free,^[4] multilingual, open content encyclopedia project operated by the non-profit Wikimedia Foundation. Its name is a blend of the words wiki (a technology for creating collaborative websites) and encyclopedia. Launched in January 2001 by Jimmy Wales and Larry Sanger,^[5] it is the largest, fastest-growing and most popular general reference work currently available on the Internet.

One of the resources available on Wikipedia is the Scouting Portal . The Scouting Portal contains links to Scouting News, Scouting by Country, Scouting Lists, Biographies and much more.

Take some time and check it out.

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You wake me up early in the morning to tell me I am right? Please wait until I am wrong.

Johann von Neumann, on being phoned at 10:00 AM
US (Hungarian-born) computer scientist, mathematician (1903 - 1957)

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I recently posted on joining the International Scout Collectors Association. In that post, I provided a link to print out an application and join the organization.

The International Scouting Collectors Association (ISCA) is a non-profit organization that promotes education regarding the history of the Scouting Movement through the collecting and trading of Scouting Memorabilia. All members subscribe to our Code of Ethics to ensure fair trading amongst its members.

IMHO the primary benefit of being an ISCA member, is the ISCA Journal.

A benefit of membership in ISCA is a subscription to The “ISCA Journal”, ISCA’s quarterly publication featuring ISCA functions, Trade-O-Ree information, history of Scouting memorabilia, news of new patches issued, reports on TOR’s, Letters to the Editor and lots more.

Kevin Doyle, provided a link on Patch-L to become an ISCA member using PayPal. If filling out an application and writing a check is too ‘old school’ click on the link and use PayPal. Kevin advises that the March issue is at the printer.

You can use the link for renewals too, so check your label to see when your subscription is due to expire.

You have probably read about the problems that John Pannell has had with his site, The Internet Guide to Order of the Arrow Insignia or more simply OA Iamges .  Just before it was hit by hackers, he had started a pledge drive for a new server.

Many of us currently support John and his site through subscriptions to the Members Only area and the pricing database we can do more.

If you are a regular user of John’s site, think about those few days the site was down.  What would you have done if John said the hell with it and shut it down?

John has set up a PayPal link to help cover the costs of new hardware.

The server this site runs on is now six years old, aging, and unable to keep up with the demands put upon it.  Some of the software can no longer be upgraded due to the age of the operating system here.   Some possible new features can’t be implemented for the same reason  It’s past time for a new server.

Your help is needed.   I have been expecting this eventuality and putting aside some of the subscription and advertising fund but that is not enough to pay for the server I think I need.   So, I am setting up a New Server Fund and accepting donations to it via PayPal.   If you wish to donate to the new server, please click the button below.

Time to help John out if you can, think of the alternative.  A world without OA Iamges?

Here is the second installment of the hardest New York State OA to collect sparked by a discussion on Patch-L. This one comes from update collector NY OA Collector, Ray Gould. Ray is a frequent contributor and commenter to this site. his collecting specialty is OA from the old Area 2-G and its successor lodges. Since there are 15 lodges (34, 34, 34, 34, 120, 219, 247, 294, 357, 410, 410, 461, 465, 500, and 516), we’ll break Ray’s thoughts up over a couple of posts.

Here are his thoughts:

Through time, I’ve found the following to be among the very toughest OA in the nation to collect (most of the following have less than 10 known examples ……approx. 1/2 have less than 5 examples…and most are undervalued). They are representative of the lodges I collect.

• #34 Gonlix (IMHO…none rank among the toughest….even the arrowheads surface with occasional regularity)

• #34

• L-01 (flame shaped leather…neckerchief slide?) NEED!!!
• eX1970-1 (fall fellowship…SSC on vinyl)

Image by permission of OA Images

• eX1970-2 (spring fellowship…SSC on vinyl)
• eX1970-3 (fall brotherhood…SSC on vinyl)
• eX1971 (Conservation Presentation…SSC and flocked on vinyl) NEED!!!

The last three images can be found on this site by clicking the links above.

More after the jump.

(more…)

John Pannell continues to work to bring his site back up and has added the following update:

2/21/2008 4:00am: After agonizing over trivial details, knowing the solutions had to be easy but were still escaping me, lots of progress has been made in the past couple of hours:

• The original home page of this site, along with the rest of the public side of this site including the lodge pages are now back online.
• The members area (price guide) is online.
• I’m probably the only one that really cares, but “nice” URLs are back in use on the blog

Hopefully full functionality will be back soon.  Kudos to John for maintaining the site and working to get it back up as  quickly as he can.