The Highest Priced Neckerchief?
Posted in Patch Collecting by John E. Pannell on March 23rd, 2008 at 12:02 am 
This neckerchief sold on eBay a few days ago. It’s an unlisted piece from Aheka 359. The closing price was an astounding $14,655.
Since the eBay link will become inactive over time, a partial screenshot is shown at the top of this post. Click on the image to see a larger version of it. Although it can currently be seen on eBay, I have obscured the buyer’s identity to preserve his privacy once this item is no longer on eBay.
The 29 bids were placed by five different bidders. Very quickly the auction became a bidding war between two of these bidders. The second highest bidder placed his lone bid nine seconds before the auction closed, in what was probably an automated “snipe”. The user ids of all bidders other than the winner’s are not completely revealed online per eBay’s policies.
Clearly three collectors wanted this piece! It has never been listed in Blue Book. I know of no reference that documents this piece and its apparent extreme rarity. There is no obvious source to document what this piece would have been worth before this auction. I don’t think anyone would have guessed it would sell for this much.
Are eBay sellers and patch collectors now feverishly searching their stock to see if they have any odd looking older neckerchiefs, especially if they say “Aheka”, in the hopes that they too an earn a windfall?
Does anyone know of a neckerchief that has ever sold for more than this? If so, please share the details with us if you can.
It seems my knowledge of this story lags. Roy More has posted about this on his blog:
http://thescoutpatchauction.com/blogsite/2008/03/19/new-record-for-oa-neckerchief-set/
In the post he intimates that there might have been some shill bidding to drive up the price. See the comment from David Scocca addressing this. While he doesn’t prove there was no shill bidding, he does make a case that nothing terribly unusual happened here.
I may have to keep on eye on this. If there was shill bidding, I suspect that will not become public knowledge but sometimes news of such things does become public.