One of my cousins was going to compete at the 1972 Games for the Hungarian Olympic rowing team so my family decided to fly over to cheer him on. Unfortunately, just before the Olympics began he sustained a muscle tear and was delegated as a substitute and was a not able to compete at the Games.

The sights, the sounds, the atmosphere of the Olympics were so enthralling to me. Remember back then, we were all reminded of the cold war on a daily basis by the media. I recall that I was afraid to meet anyone who was Russian or East German.

We were lucky enough to be issued a pass to visit my cousin in the Munich Olympic Village where I saw athletes from the worldover, laughing and joking with each other, and I must say that I was rather conflicted. I thought to myself aren't I supposed to be deathly afraid of the people from behind the iron curtain (with the exception of my family of course)?

My cousin was kind enough to give me a handful of Hungarian Olympic Committee Team pins (NOC – National Olympic Committee pins for short). He helped place them on my baseball cap. No sooner than the last one was strategically placed, a Russian Basketball player who was a tower of a man came up to me and handed me a couple of Russian 1972 NOC pins to add to my cap. Cold war? What cold war?

The kind gesture of a couple of pins from that Russian gentle giant tore down the iron curtain for me. From that moment I was hooked. That very day I managed to accumulate twelve different National Olympic Committee Team Pins. It was official; I had become a "pinhead".

The next day my mother and I were leaving the Olympic swimming venue on the final day of competition. A throng of people were surrounding someone on the main floor right by one of the exits. Being curious by nature I had to see what the commotion was all about. It turned out to be a German athlete signing autographs for some crazed fans. I managed to squirm through the crowd and I caught his attention.  I introduced myself and wished him good luck. He gave me a pin off his jacket lapel, which was just a plain nondescript light blue vertical retail stick pin that had the Munich Olympic logo and the Olympic rings on it.

One of the fanatics hounding the athlete wanted that pin I had just received. He just couldn't understand why he would have given it to me, a kid from Canada and I couldn't understand a word he was saying but luckily enough my mother speaks German. I refused to trade him the pin because I wanted to keep that pin. He would not relent and explained to my mother that he would buy five identical pins to the one that I just received at a kiosk a few metres away. He explained that he would buy the same pins, which cost two marks each, and he would place them in my cupped hands along with the pin I had just traded for and I was to shake them up and he would pull one pin out.

My mother asked why he was willing to go to such lengths to do that, he simply said that he was willing to take a chance to hopefully choose the pin he wanted. He said that he was lucky by nature and he just knew that he would wind up with the pin he was after. I figured, he was a bit cuckoo and I had a five in six chance that I would still be in possession of my coveted pin.  He bought the five pins, I stuck out my hands, the choice was made and he was ecstatic. It turned out to be a win, win for both of us. To this day my mother and I still get a laugh about it and for the life of me I still don't know who that German athlete was.


When we returned home to Canada I had amassed a whopping total of 45 different Olympic pins, in the final five days we were at the Games, which I believe was quite a haul for a 10-year-old first timer. The following is a breakdown of pins I collected in Munich: seven different retail pins, six media pins, two corporate pins and 30 different NOC pins. During the 1972 Olympics there simply weren't a variety of different corporate Olympic pins.

By the time the 1976 Montreal Olympic Games arrived I thought of myself as a veteran "pinhead". I knew that I wanted NOC pins and media pins the most and I set my sites on collecting those specific pins. I delivered newspapers for three years leading up the 76 Games and saved my money. As soon as we arrived in Montreal I bought 12 Montreal Olympic pins, which were $3.00 each. I immediately started looking for people to trade with. The 1976 Games had slim pickings for the variety of different retail and corporate pins I had hoped for. However, there was a bevy of NOC pins and a few media pins to collect.

At the Montreal Games my family had the good fortune to visit the Olympic Village again because my cousin had married the Hungarian national javelin champion. Michael Németh is his name and he won the gold medal at those Games. He was the first man ever to throw the javelin over 100 metres. Since then they have reconfigured the javelin so it won't travel as far. I was able to get eight Hungarian NOC pins from him. I immediately started trading and within an hour had to go back to him for more. I must have depleted Michael's stock pile of 1976 Hungarian NOC pins because when I went back for third time he wasn't as accommodating.

I got to meet and trade pins with members of the Iranian wrestling team, Indian field hockey team, Romanian gymnastics team, US boxing team, Italian cycling team, French fencing team plus a bunch of other athletes. I was looking for the Russian gentle giant I had met at the Munich Olympics but it was to no avail. I was now 14-years-old and at this Olympics I attended 20 events and came home with some amazing memories and just over 90 pins in 16 days.

During the 1980 Lake Placid Winter Games and the 1984 Los Angeles Games the responsibilities of the world and school limited the time that I could attend the Games but that being said I must have collected over 100 pins in seven days of attendance for both Games combined. I was completely blown away by the sheer number of corporate pins that were produced for the 1984 LA games – I believe that there may have been over 600 corporate pins produced.


The 1988 Calgary and 1994 Lillehammer Winter Olympic Games were absolutely outstanding. The people were so very friendly and the pin trading was hot and heavy. During the Calgary Games, Coca-Cola made their presence known. They set up a pin trading centre which was well attended by "pinheads" from all over the world. At the Calgary Games they produced over 800 corporate pins and close to 200 Calgary Olympic specific Coca-Cola pins. I came home with over 400 pins from those Games.

At the 1994 Lillehammer Olympics I volunteered for the Canadian Olympic team and Coca-Cola produced the first "Pin of the Day" set. People were lining up outside the Coca-Cola pin trading area every morning to get their pins. The pins made for the 1994 Olympics were produced by a Norwegian company called Trofe and they were the best production quality to that point by far. I collected about 150 pins during those Games. These Games were more about the experience than Olympic pin collecting.

I was so touched by the Norwegian people. They were kind, curious, warm and an extremely knowledgeable people as a whole. To date it is by far my favourite Olympics that I have attended. While in Lillehammer I met Juan Antonio Samaranch, who was the President of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) and I donated my uncle Puskás' Olympic football uniform to the IOC Museum. About 6 months later I received a handwritten letter from Mr Samaranch with a diploma that made me an honorary IOC member.

Unfortunately, about a year after the 1994 Lillehammer Games my first wife and I had a falling out over a fishing trip I had scheduled with her brothers. In a fit of rage my entire Olympic collection that I had personally collected was thrown in the garbage, including all the memorabilia given to me from family members who competed at various Olympics. I had to start over again, from scratch.

At the 2002 Salt Lake City Olympics I volunteered for the Canadian Olympic team for a second time, but this time I was joined by my new wife, Laurie. Salt Lake City was weird as it was so soon after 9-11 and there was a heavy police and military presence but that did not stop the pin trading. Americans are extremely resilient people and in true American fashion they rose above it all and threw one hell of an Olympics.

The pin trading was abundant and the variety of corporate, media and retail pins were unlike anything I had ever seen at previous Games. There were so many different police, fire department, special forces and Government agency pins produced and all of them of exquisite quality. I experienced an absolutely amazing Games and the entire experience was made so much better because I had my wife to share it with.

During the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics I was shocked when on the day after the Opening Ceremonies I went out to grab a bite to eat and was hard pressed to find a place open because most places were closed because Juventus was playing Milan in football that evening. That was the harbinger of things to come. There really wasn't a lot of pin trading going on except for fellow pinheads that had travelled from around the world. Most of the attendees didn't really care about pins. I wound up leaving Torino with about 80 pins. They were of the finest quality as they were produced by the same company who supplied the 1994 Lillehammer Games. Thank you, Trofe, for producing such wonderful pins.

When Vancouver was selected to host the 2010 Winter Olympics I was ecstatic. I immediately circled the calendar and wondered what Herculean feats would be awaiting us and pins of course. I went off the deep end and built a website that went live on July 18 2008. The website, which is www.pincollectorssite.com has had over 104,000 visitors and features my trader pins and my collection.

The website is broken into categories which include the following:

Bid Pins, Corporate Pins, Coca-Cola Pins, Government Pins, Law Enforcement Pins, Mascot Pins, Media Pins, NOC & Federations Pins, Torch Relay Pins, VANOC Internal Pins, and Souvenir/Retail Pins.

Leading up to the Vancouver Olympics I collected over 700 Olympic pins for my collection. During the Games I was able to attend 17 events and collected more than 600 pins to add to my collection. My Vancouver 2010 Olympic collection now numbers over 1,900 pins.

London 2012 will be the first time I will be attending an Olympic Games with my own family and I can hardly wait for the experience and more importantly introduce my children to pin collecting. With that in mind I know that there are many of you that are just starting to collect Olympic pins. So I would like to impart some of my knowledge, wisdom and experience about Olympic pins. To be able to collect and trade Olympic pins I think it wise to know a little bit about the history Olympic pins before delving into the hobby.

The first Olympic pins originated in Athens at the 1896 Summer Olympic Games. There were three different pin-badges produced at the first Modern Games. More specifically they were badges made only for judges, athletes and officials. They were little more than small circular cardboard badges with a ribbon. The badges were not traded because their primary function was that of an identity badge. Only one of each was given per recipient and was specific to the bearer. The first real metal badge was created at the 1900 Olympiad in Paris.

The first National Olympic Committee team pin (NOC pin) is up for debate. Some experts say that France produced the first NOC pin in 1900 for the Paris games of that same year. Others say that it was Sweden who produced them for their athletes to wear and trade in the Intercalated Games of Athens in 1906. Canada's first Olympic NOC pin was produced for the 1908 Games in London. There were three pins produced. The same pin was struck in gold, silver and bronze.


The first Olympic souvenir pin produced for spectators was a beautiful pure silver stick pin for the 1912 Stockholm Olympic Games.

Following World War I, the renaissance of pins started during the 1924 Olympics in Paris most if not all participating National Olympic Committees had produced pins in one form or another. They were produced in the finest and elaborate detail. Some were produced of precious metals.

The depression years saw the momentum and evolution of pin production and design diminish but that would change rather rapidly with the advent of the 1936 Olympics and the Nazi propaganda machine in full swing. Millions of souvenir pins were produced for the Garmisch-Partenkirchen and subsequent Berlin Olympiads.

During the 1940s through to the early to mid 1960s everything remained pretty much status quo for the most part with the exception of one major new player, the corporate pin. The first corporate pin that I ever heard of was produced by IBM for the 1964 Tokyo Olympics.

The first Games that had any substantial trading going on between the general public and pin enthusiast was the games in Montreal 1976 where people were congregating around the main stadium (The Big "O") and trading well into the night. I was one of them at the age of 14.

Many collectors would say that the golden age of pin collecting, as we know it, started in 1980 Lake Placid where quite a few corporate sponsors came on board and produced Olympic pins. The 1984 Games in Los Angeles is where pin trading took off like a rocket. The 1984 Games produced more corporate Olympic pins than all previous Olympics combined. The Budweiser Tent just outside of the main coliseum in LA was where the craze got its momentum and hasn't looked back since.

Probably the most significant boost to the hobby occurred in Calgary when Coca-Cola opened and managed the first ever Coca-Cola Pin Trading Area. It was designed specifically with pin trading and hobbyists in mind. The tented area opened its doors at 9:00am and didn't shut its doors until 11:00pm. There was nothing like it. People were lining up outside every day waiting for the doors to open so they could meet like-minded individuals with pins on the brain. It was the first time I heard the term "pinhead" used that did not have a derogatory connotation.


I strongly believe that London could prove to be the beginning of a great new tradition. What will that pin trading tradition be? We will all have to collectively hold our breath and see. To quote H A L the super computer from 2001 the Space Odyssey "something wonderful is going to happen".

If you are an experienced pin collector or a relative new comer to the hobby, you have asked the question. "Is there such a thing as etiquette in pin trading?"  The simple answer is an unequivocal yes. Etiquette is what keeps people in the hobby and the lack there of is what gets people out of the hobby.

Simply put there are some do's and don'ts in this hobby. If you live by the following simple rules you will find that the pin gods will smile on you and light your way. Just remember great karma is a great thing and bad karma sucks and can follow you around for a long time.

Do's:

·         Always help the newcomer to the hobby, particularly the younger ones because they will be our flag bearers for our hobby in the future.

·         Always be honest. You'll sleep better.

·         Display your pins in a way that they are easy to access and show off.

·         Only show your traders and try not to show ones you're not prepared to part with.

·         Try to trade for a pin you want when it presents itself. You never know when you'll see that pin again.

·         Respond to every email query.

·         Always be polite because it could help clinch that trade.

·         Always try to educate with every opportunity.

·         Pin trading is a great way to meet people. Try to be friendly. You never know how many lifelong friends you can make in this hobby.

·         Most importantly HAVE FUN!!!!

Do Not's:

·         Never trade a pin you know is a counterfeit pin without informing the unsuspecting trading partner. Bad form. Remember that karma thing.

·         Trade with a youngster who doesn't know the value of what he or she has.

·         Interrupt a trade in progress.

·         Be overly aggressive.

·         Be rude.

·         Trade with someone you think might be a questionable trader.

·         Be overly enthusiastic when you see a pin you really want. You'll be at a disadvantage.

·         Display pins you have no intention of trading. That's teasing and no one likes a bragger.

·         Go crazy if you are a novice, especially if going after costly items you know little about.

Remember, if you don't know always ask a more experienced trader collector. Their input can prove invaluable.

Best of luck in your collecting endeavours and if you have any questions please visit my Olympic pin website at www.pincollectorssite.com or contact me at [email protected]. If you have any London 2012 Olympic pins for trade please contact me.

To find out more about pin collecting visit insidegamescollecting by clicking here. 

Or you can join our dedicated collecting facebook page by clicking here. 

Andrew Kollo is a pin collecter based in Canada 

  Honav is the official manufacturer of pins for London 2012 {jcomments lock}