Olympic obsession: little pins

They seem like anyone else. They’re bankers, printers, husbands and wives, even celebrities. But they have a dirty little secret. They’re trapped in the throes of an obsession that can strain marriages and even ruin lives.

“These little pieces of metal have amazing powers over people “ says veteran collector and dealer Jeff Fleming of Utah. “Olympic pins are like dope or gambling.”

Among the famous Olympic pin addicts are Katie Couric, Ahmad Rashad and Jim Nabors, as well as such athletes as Rick Barry and third-generation Olympian Jimmy Shea, reportedly a hard-core trader. It’s a hobby that seems innocent ... until you’re hooked.

There are dozens of websites devoted to the hobby and hordes of collectors around the world waiting like hawks to swoop down upon new styles the instant they’re minted. They can be as simple as a flag with the famed rings logo or as ornate as a large, blooming golden flower containing many small symbols within.

Media outlets create their own, such as NBC’s video camera pin with a flashing red light. Corporate sponsors such as Coca-Cola lure victims with series pins that drive buyers to distraction, fearing to miss even one in the set. Thousands of different designs are fashioned for each Olympics, with sales at Sydney reportedly reaching 65 million pins in 2000. Major corporations help spread the pandemic by setting up trading areas in cities hosting the Games, drawing mobs of wild-eyed enthusiasts.

“We used to see the sun come up on Figueroa; we were out there all night trading during the Los Angeles Games,” says Suzanne Papazian, who has attended 11 Olympics in a row. Papazian tells of completing a set of pins while in Nagano that formed the shape of a Coke bottle for about $100, then selling it right away to a desperate Japanese collector for $1,000. Of course, she had also assembled a set for herself. Fleming says, “It’s like a panic attack; it’s like buck fever, you find insanity among people during the Games. When people have to have something, they’ll pay anything for it. It takes over your common sense.”

Fleming says he has witnessed many an ugly scene over pins, like the former torch-bearer who resorted to shoplifting them from Fleming’s store and another obsessed client who spent himself into an inextricable hole for pins, beautiful pins. “He ended up in a hospital under a suicide watch, all because of pins.”

Some will do just about anything for a fix. Ray Erwin of Los Angeles, who estimates his collection at 10,000 pieces, says that a woman in Barcelona asked him for six pins in exchange for her company for the night. Not even six valuable items, he emphasizes, just ones with the words “Barcelona 1992” on them. (A married man, Erwin declined the offer.)

Richard Murray of Ontario, Calif., a respiratory therapist and longtime member of the New York-based Olympin Club, the hobby’s largest organization, is working to set up the club’s 23rd annual collector’s show in October, which for the first time will be held in Los Angeles.

“Atlanta and Orlando bid on the ’04 show, but we won,” he says proudly. The club expects 1,000 to 2,000 attendees at the Wilshire Grand Hotel for the event. He still holds out hope that he’ll find that ultra-rare 1900 Paris jury pin he’s been hungrily seeking, perhaps at the show.

It starts out so innocently: a free offer on a Coke can, a gift from a friend. But as they discover, only the first one is free.

Another Olympin-ian, Erwin says he got started when his company printed the tickets for the 1984 Los Angeles Games, earning the company its own set of pins. His boss gave him a bag to trade on his behalf, plus “one bag to keep. I went down to Brookside Park -- and that’s how I got started.”

Often, pins can be gateway items, leading to harder stuff. Collectors might trade bunches of ordinary pins for a few rare ones, then parlay those into such prizes as torches or athletes’ participation medals. And then the big payoff can come: bronze, silver and even gold medals.

“I have an Atlanta gold medal,” says Scott Reed of Georgia. He obtained the item “from a fellow collector who got it from a female Russian cyclist. I don’t know why she gave it up, but there are medals available.”

In non-Olympic years, pin traders can fall on hard times.

“Prices go up [around] the Games, then maybe 95% of collectors will say, ‘Enough is enough,’ ” says Utah’s Fleming. “They’ll frame them and forget about it until the next Olympics. Right now, the market is deader than a doornail. I’ve got pins on EBay that retail for $7 selling for $4.95. It’s flat; it’s unlike any other Olympics.”

Fleming blames this lull before the upcoming Athens Games in part on what he calls the Greeks’ “negative spin on the pins that are produced in the U.S.A. The hype is that they’re not authentic, not licensed, which is not true. It may get ugly for those U.S. collectors who are going to travel to Greece in an effort to sell or trade pins.”

The situation is similar to one that bedeviled collectors in Barcelona in 1992. Strict enforcement of laws prohibiting selling by unlicensed vendors drove pinheads into dark alleys. “We were doing business in doorways,” says local collector Bob Bravender, like Murray, Papazian and Erwin, a member of the Olympin Club. “You feel like a criminal. It was crazy.”

Atlanta’s Reed shrugs off any suggestion of acrimony toward the Greeks. “My opinion is that Athens pins will be very sought after because a lot of people who normally go seem to be staying home, whether it’s because of terrorism or infrastructure.”

Official manufacturer Efsimon Collections has generated more than 800 limited-edition designs. Of these, more than 200 have already sold out. One of the original mascot pins recently sold on EBay for $400.

“The Greek people have gone pin crazy!” says Efsimon Chief Executive Nikos Konstantopoulos on www.athens2004.com. “And foreigners reckon the Athens pins to be the best ever for the Olympic Games, and there’s incredible demand for them.”

But is this a fair assessment, or the hard sell of a heartless pin pusher? “Beauty’s in the eye of the beholder,” Reed says. “My impression is that people in Greece think they’re beautiful, but I think they’re ugly.” Reed says he didn’t expect to like the Athens pins enough to buy many, so he’d likely keep his haul down to a mere 300 to 400.

There are no reliable price guides available, so the hobby is coldly ruled by supply and demand. It’s hard to guess what the hot buy will be.

“It’s like the stock market,” says Fleming. “You have to be extremely lucky. If you’re in it for the money, forget about it.”

A quick survey of trading and selling sites showed that the most common items were in the $5 to $10 range. Media pins tend to fetch the highest prices of those easily available online. For instance, the bland-looking Associated Press pins for Seoul 1988 sell on one popular site for top dollar ($35), whereas the charming tiger mascot/soccer event pin is only $6.99.

But the real money is in the ultra-scarce “country” pins. These National Olympic Committee pins are worn by the athletes themselves and often are released into the wild after being traded with other Olympians. For instance, pin manufacturer Trofe’s 1988 Art Deco pins for the African nation of Gabon might command $300 to $400 -- if you could even find one for sale. Country pins such as Britain’s from the 1936 Berlin Games might run as high as $1,000.

The most expensive items, however, tend to be participation badges, such as for the ones for the 1924 Winter Games, valued at around $15,000, and torches, among the rarest being the 1960 Squaw Valley edition, one of which sold recently for $45,000.

Most old-school pinheads scoff at the wave of commerciality that has overwhelmed their hobby. Some complain that it has come to resemble baseball card dealing, with greed ruling the roost.

“True collectors would rather trade,” Reed says. “That’s the fun of it. Me, for instance, I sell and buy, but I do it mainly to support my hobby.

“Earlier this year, somebody wanted to sell about 2,500 pins from the Atlanta Games. There were three I needed, so I bought the 2,500 for those three,” he confesses.

He tries to stay open about his pin habit with his wife so she doesn’t get any unpleasant surprises. He adds that he made his money back from his big buy in just a few months -- a calculated risk to complete a set.

“I don’t think it’s crazy, but you might.”