when was this used for boyscouts?? NAZI sign?

bfratta1981 · Nov 17, 2012

found this yesturday if anyone knows what it is please help!

Red James Cash · Nov 17, 2012

A swastika was used for many things before the rise of the nazis.It goes a long way back and use to be considered a magical symbol.

adaminnh · Nov 17, 2012

Thats freaky

Critical Recovery · Nov 17, 2012

Red James cash said:
A swastika was used for many things before the rise of the nazis.It goes a long way back and use to be considered a magical symbol.

This ^^^
It is a very old symbol, and was quite popular in the US as a good luck symbol around the turn of the century til about 1933 or so when the nazi party became more prevalent.
There was even a US military division that had it on their patch and it was used on some Escadrille Lafayette artwork from the Great War.

ticm · Nov 17, 2012

bfratta1981 said:
found this yesturday if anyone knows what it is please help!

I found one like that. Mine is dated 1910.

CRUSADER · Nov 17, 2012

Its a good luck sign going back a couple of thousand years at least

xsully777 · Nov 17, 2012

The medalion you have is from the excelsior shoe company. Many shoe companys wanted to be known as the official boyscout shoe when the boyscouts were founded in 1910. when a boyscout bought a pair of excelsior shoes they got a medalion. There are different varieties of this medalion. The one I have doesn't have the swastika just an E with some horses if I remember right. Also, if the troop leader got all of his scouts to order shoes through excelsior, he would recieve a sterling silver medalion. As for the swastika, everyone else is correct it was a good luck symbol that was used in many different cultures for many many years until, obviously when the Nazi's took it for their own and defaced the symbol. I just recently got back from China and I saw the swastika symbol on bricks in courtyards that were hundreds of years old.

JohnnyMac · Nov 17, 2012

I found a neat one a few months ago,,

Mackaydon · Nov 17, 2012

bfratta,
The swastika was used as an early symbol by the British Boy Scouts and others. Its earliest use in Scouting was on the Thanks Badge introduced in 1911. Lord Baden-Powell's 1922 design for the Medal of Merit added a swastika to the Scout fleur-de-lis to symbolize good luck for the recipient. In 1934, Scouters requested a change to the design because of the later use of the swastika by the German National Socialist Workers (Nazi) Party.
Don.......

Phanntom · Nov 17, 2012

It was also an early version of the Christian cross. I might be wrong on this, but I believe I read once that the Christian version goes one way, and the Nazi's reversed it as a snub to religion. It was especially used in germanic areas. I have an antique writing desk that's a family heirloom that has one prominently placed on the face of it when the writing surface is raised (in the closed position). Anytime someone new visited my home, I ended up having to explain it and the fact I wasn't a neo-nazi.