Mascot Family LE pin

The Vancouver Sun runs a sidebar in its Road to 2010 weekly feature called Collectors' Corner ... and it seems tailor-made for this blog. Enjoy.

What: 2010 Mascot Family limited-edition Pin

Value: $12

History: Actually, there isn't very much of a history yet for this, or any of the new pins celebrating the 2010 mascots.

But this one is notable because in the three weeks since VANOC introduced Quatchi, Sumi and Miga to the world, it has become the most popular retail pin produced for the 2010 Games.

Not only that, it has become the top seller on VANOC's Internet store site heading into the Christmas season, according to the organizing committee.

The pin is one of five versions produced by pin consortium Artiss Aminco ULC, which has the licence to produce all of the retail, corporate and specialty pins for the Games.

VANOC says only 2,502 of the Mascot Family pins were produced as a "limited edition," complete with an identifying backstamp and its own case. But copies of the pin without the case and limited stamp will continue to be produced for the retail market.

As trade value goes, the limited editions are still only worth the $12 VANOC is charging for them.

Errors and Mistakes

The Vancouver Sun runs a sidebar in its Road to 2010 weekly feature called Collectors' Corner ... and it seems tailor-made for this blog. Enjoy.

In the realm of coin and stamp collecting, mistakes are generally prized more than when the item is correctly manufactured. When someone screws up in a process that is now highly automated, owning one of the resulting mistakes carries a certain cachet.

Perhaps the most famous example is 1918 Inverted Jenny error, when the U.S. post office accidentally printed a Curtiss JN-4 biplane upside down on a sheet of its new 24-cent airmail stamps.

The result is that a single unused stamp from that sheet is now worth more than $375,000 and a block of four is worth a cool $1.25 million.

You won't get rich on Vancouver 2010 errors, but perhaps the best one to date is the accidental printing of the Ilanaaq Olympic logo on a new Paralympic 25-cent coin instead of the Paralympic logo.

In the close, but still separated worlds of the Olympics and Paralympics, such a crossover is not wanted.

Although the Royal Canadian Mint made 30,000 sets of the coins, which sell for about $25, only a few thousand are believed to contain the error. The mint says it held back 8,000 sets and will destroy them after a corrected coin is minted.

Brian Grant Duff of the Bay Coins and Stamps says the set is now worth upwards of $400.

Spread Some Cheer !!

Vancouver Chinese-language pin

The Vancouver Sun runs a sidebar in its Road to 2010 weekly feature called Collectors' Corner ... and it seems tailor-made for this blog. Enjoy.

What: Vancouver City Chinese-language sponsor pin

Value: $40 for each of two types

History: Vancouver is one of four civic government partners in the 2010 Olympics and Paralympics. The others are Richmond, West Vancouver and Whistler.

Vancouver took its status to a new level, commissioning a pin in two styles of Chinese language; one in simplified text and the other in traditional characters.

The city bought 500 each through Artiss Aminco, the official 2010 pin producer for the purpose of giving them to visiting Chinese dignitaries and Chinese residents and taking them to Beijing for the 2008 Summer Games.

In their own right the pins are worth perhaps $20 each. There the story might have stood had it not been for one of those tiny mistakes that translate into major political goofs.

Artiss Aminco accidentally had the pins produced in Taiwan, Republic of China, instead of at its regular facilities in the People's Republic of China.

The PRC considers Taiwan to be a renegade province, and the stamp "TAIWAN" on the back of the pins was not discovered until most of the pins were distributed.

For the sake of political sensitivity, the city scrapped the remaining pins and pledged to re-order more made in China.

Olympic pins raise Chinese ire

2010 Olympic Chinese language pins stamped 'Made in Taiwan' popular with collectors

Tuesday, December 04, 2007

VANCOUVER, B.C. - What's in a name? If the name is Taiwan and it's supposed to be China, and it involves political sensitivities around the Olympics, quite a lot of trouble, it seems. A Vancouver city official said Monday the city has had to scrap two runs of official Olympic government sponsor pins after it was discovered the manufacturer made them in Taiwan, known as the Republic of China, rather than in China, the People's Republic of China.

Taiwan, which China considers a breakaway region, is not formally recognized by Canada as a country. Relations between the two countries is at times tense, and Beijing protests regularly when Taiwan is given too much official status.

Sven Buemann, Vancouver's chief protocol officer, said the optics of the city's gaffe are obvious now, but it wasn't discovered until many of the pins were handed out.

"Right now we've had a printing error on them which we are hoping to get rectified very, very soon," Buemann said. "If you look at the back of the pin it says Taiwan. It's not a large issue, but it is one we are sensitive to. We had hoped these pins wouldn't say Made in Taiwan, as they are made for the Chinese market."

The pins feature two Chinese language versions of the term "Vancouver" and "Host City" above and below the official logo of the Vancouver 2010 Winter Olympics. On the back, above the pin, is a stamp "TAIWAN."

The city's communications department contracted with official Vanoc pin-maker Artiss Aminco Ltd. to produce the pins.

The city planned to give them out to Chinese residents, and to also take them to Beijing with an official delegation for the 2008 Summer Games. But the error went undiscovered for about a year.

Now, Buemann says the city will have to reorder the entire lot in advance of the Beijing Games.

Artiss Aminco, which produces all official Olympic pins for the Vancouver Organizing Committee, including for sponsors and retail sales, normally produces its pins in China, or at partner plants in Canada.

But for reasons CEO Chris Pasterfield can't explain, small runs of the Vancouver city pin were sent to a plant it uses in Taiwan.

"At the time we did it we weren't aware that it was going to be [produced] there," he said. "Vancouver hasn't contacted us yet. Hopefully they will."

Both Buemann and Mayor Sam Sullivan's office say they haven't had any official complaints from Chinese authorities. But clearly, the pins could not continue to be handed out, Buemann said. Jennifer Young, the assistant director of corporate communications, said the city paid $2 each for 1,000 pins, half of which were written in a traditional Chinese character, and half in a simplified Chinese text.

The mistake may be embarrassing for Vancouver, but it has become a hot commodity for pin traders and collectors. Frank Zavarella, of the Pacific Pin Trading Club, said he's being flooded with requests from collectors looking for one of the misprints. Where a Vancouver city host pin might be worth $20 in trade value, it's worth double that, he said.

"To me, all of the sudden they became a rarity," Zavarella said. "Everybody is wanting one now."

Pasterfield said he learned of the pin mistake last week when he was in Vancouver for the launch of the 2010 mascots. Vanoc spokesman Chris Brumwell said to his knowledge no other Olympic pins - whether for retail sales or sponsors - were produced in Taiwan.

The gaffe comes as Beijing considers Vancouver as one of three stops on an international torch relay for the 2008 Paralympic Games. In September, BOCOG, the Beijing organizing committee invited Vancouver, as well as London and Sochi, Russia - which will host the 2012 Summer and 2014 Winter Games respectively - to host the torch on the first international Paralympic tour.