Popular Games site opens

Pin Center: Popular Games site opens

Peter Thunell
Deseret News
November 4, 2001

PARK CITY — A new Olympic venue opened Thursday for an unofficial Olympic sport that many say they're stuck on. Park City officials and Olympic sponsor Coca-Cola opened Utah's first official Olympic pin trading site at Miner's Park on Main Street.

At the site, pin traders will be able to meet and swap Olympics pins — a popular Games pastime. There are plans to create two other pin trading sites, another one in Park City and one in downtown Salt Lake.

Park City Mayor Brad Olch, an admitted Olympic pin aficionado, said the pin swapping lets everybody get involved.

"We want to give the community a chance to enjoy the Olympic spirit and provide as many opportunities as possible for Park City residents and visitors to have memorable experiences during this special time in our city's history," Olch said.

Trisha Dewaal, who works nearby at Village Keepsakes in Park City, said she recently caught the pin-trading fever at work.

"Everyone is looking for pins," Dewaal said. "Someone comes in and has never heard of the pins, and by the time they leave the store they have at least five."

Dewaal said her pin genre of choice is pins depicting food, and already she has a collection of 80 pins, with her peanut butter pin ranking as her favorite.

Some professional Olympic pin swappers also were on hand Thursday giving advice and helping to get the ball rolling with the trading. Bill Hipson got his pin trading start in 1988 at the Calgary Winter Games and now trades and sells Olympic pins for a living.

He said the trading is addictive — he sold his refrigerator, washer and dryer once for three pins — but in the end it is more about meeting people and having fun.

"Trading is the fun of it," Hipson said. "The only rule is that it needs to be a good trade for the both of you. Sometimes people will say 'My pin's worth 50 bucks and yours is only worth 10.' They're all just 50-cent pins when they're born."

Still, the name of the game is scarcity. The more scarce a pin is, the more valuable it is. Some of the pins, like the original green Jell-O pin and the fry sauce pin, are already climbing in value, Hipson said.

A friend of Hipson, Helene White, said that in Atlanta, a restaurant made a pin of five onion rings in the Olympic symbol that was quickly banned by Olympic officials. The pins shot up in value and now are almost the "Holy Grail of Olympic pins," some having sold for as much as $1,500 each.

Riverton resident Dolan Hudson said some of the more rare pins for the Salt Lake Games include one with crossed skis and the now-discarded bid logo, the cowboy hat pin with the bid logo, a puzzle set with the bid logo and one with the Olympic logos from the past four Games.

The hottest pins Thursday were two limited edition pins Coca-Cola released, one depicting Miner's Park and the other having a big 100 on it to commemorate the 100 days until the Games. Hipson said that because there were so few of the pins made, they jumped in value just as soon as they sold out.