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Why is everyone so averse to badge collecting?
I am the authorized agent for buying badges off eBay for my fraternity's museum, and I just don't have a problem with collectors saving pins from the scrap gold dealers. We don't have the infinite funds necessary to pay fair market value for every standard badge when a brother passes on. While it is nice to dream that the badges "belong" to the fraternity, that ain't the way the world works. Nobody else has that kind of money either and they never will, because fraternites would rather invest in scholarships for members than in little bits of gold. People are more important than things. We concentrate on the particularly old or unique badges and private sources have provided the budget to cover them.
Unfortunately, through ignorance or carelessness, literally hundreds of thousands of badges have been melted down over the years. Why should these relics be lost forever? Think about all the artwork and history we Greeks lost when the price of gold was $800 an ounce. Unless there is some reason for the scrap gold dealers to list the pins on eBay or whereever, simple economics dictates the badges are going into the melting pot. Pin collectors provide that reason. If it weren't for them, there would be no market incentive for anyone to ever list them on eBay in the first place. (Hey, if you don't like living in a capitalistic society, move to Cuba!)
Besides, my fraternity has lasted much longer than any human lifespan and I'd be willing to bet dollars to donuts that yours has, too. What do you think the pin collectors are going to do with their pins when they kick the bucket--melt them down? Nope. For the most part, they're going to a fraternity or sorority museum where they can be enjoyed by even more people.
None of the pin collectors I have met wear pins they are not authorized to wear nor do they attempt to pass themselves off as anything they are not. Quite the opposite. Of the ones I have met, all but one is a member of one GLO or another but every single one of them cherishes and respects their pins as though they did know all the secrets behind them.
I certainly hope you don't think of pin collectors as evil and I sincerely apologize if my opinion offends any of you. But try to be a little more patient. Your fraternity will get those badges soon enough. It's the ones being melted down that I agonize over!
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