333 Summer Ordeal patch issued

Wahunsenakah Lodge 333 held their 2008 Summer Ordeal this weekend, and commemorated the event with a nice fully embroidered three inch round patch. Member Larry Johnson kindly sent along a picture to add to the Lodge 333 Activity Emblems web page.

This is the third activity patch of 2008 for Wahunsenakah. The Lodge has issued 5 activity patches per year since 1998 for the following events: Winter Ordeal, Spring Ordeal, Summer Ordeal, Fall Fellowship, and Christmas/Winter Banquet.

Although Wahunsenakah 333 was formed in January of 1996, a Fall Fellowship was not added to the Lodge calendar until 1998, so only 4 activity patches were issued during 1996 and 1997.

Bayport 2008 patches

Larry Johnson kindly sent me images of all of the patches issued for the 2008 summer camp sessions at Bayport Scout Reservation, Colonial Virginia Council's camping facility that opened in 2007 to replace Camp Chickahominy.

The new issues are pictured in the animated image above and include a standard pocket patch available to everyone (black border), a blue bordered variety for campers, a white bordered staff issue, and finally a Rivah Base issue with blue border and "RIVAH" lettered on the tower. For larger images and pictures of the 2007 patches issued for Bayport see the Colonial Virginia Camps page.

New Colonial Virginia Council FOS web page

Recently I discovered a neat new way to zoom images from a web page and thought I would try implementing it on my web site to see if it would be useful for displaying thumbnail images of patches that enlarge when clicked on. The best part is that you can have multiple images open at the same time for comparison.

The first page I tried this on details the special shoulder patches that have been issued by Colonial Virginia Council for their Friends of Scouting donors. I noticed that several of the patch designs were inspired by Norman Rockwell paintings and thought it would be cool to provide images of the patch and the corresponding painting to illustrate the source of the design.

Give it a try and let me know if you run into any issues. So far it works fine on my MacBook Pro and even on my iPhone.

Is it an issue, a variation, a fake, or a mistake?

There is an auction for a flap from Wahunsenakah Lodge on eBay right now that would puzzle most collectors not closely familiar with the patches from this Lodge. The patch up for bid is a lodge flap that was issued for the 1998 SR-7A conclave, and if you look in the Blue Book you'd see that that issue is classified as the S-8.

OAimages.com values the S-8 between $2.69 and $14.89 with an average value of $7.16. Even though the flap is ten years old it's considered a fairly common item and an easy find for your collection if you need it. So why is this auction showing a current high bid of over $100 with over 4 days left to go?

A comparison of the flap picture in the auction and the picture at oaimages.com or at kecoughtan.com would show one very small, but significant difference. The FDL (fleur d'lis) that is embroidered into the patch up for auction is black. The one in the picture from oaimages.com and kecoughtan.com is light green, so that the FDL is "ghosted" into the background:

I'm not sure how many of the S-8 flaps with black FDL's exist, nor how they came to be in circulation. More than a few OA flaps have been duplicated by Asian patchmakers and sold on eBay but this hardly appears to be the case here. The most obvious explanation would be a manufacturer's error.

I am fortunate to have one of these in my own Wahunsenakah collection, but it was sheer luck and not because I sought it. I always considered it just an error item.

Some would argue that this flap should be listed in the Blue Book as a variation, e.g. S-8b. I am not sure that I can agree with that since I don't know the history of the flap.

If the Lodge received some flaps with black FDL's and sent them back to the manufacturer as misprints and received credit or replacements with green FDL's they probably never intended the black FDL versions to reach the public. Similarly they may have been samples that the Lodge returned with a revision request to the manufacturer, and somehow the samples got out. Are they still an "official" Lodge 333 issue?

Regardless, it appears that for collectors who seek one of every Wahunsenakah Lodge flap this has already become a highly sought after patch. If you have information about the history or scarcity of it, please share it with me!