Special Pins for Special Days

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

History: Have a theme, make a pin. That's the stock-in-trade now of Olympic organizing committees, which issue hundreds of pins celebrating every possible style, event, theme or day. Add to that, gimmicky things like flashing lights, and you have another reason for someone to be interested.

In this case, VANOC's licensed pin producer, Artiss Aminco, is producing a small run of special day pins that blink. One is the St. Patrick's Day pin, of which only 1,000 were made. Aminco says the pin is now sold out -- at least to retailers -- although we found a small group of 15 at VANOC's Olympic Store at their headquarters.

Aminco usually issues 2,010 pins for each style, but limits some pins, like this one and the upcoming Canada Day pin, to smaller runs. Pin historian Frank Zavarella says the St. Pat's pin will be a hot trader during the Olympics.