Little Keepsakes That Tell a Story

QUESTION: I live in Atlanta, Georgia, and attended some of the events at the Olympic Games held here in 1996. During the games, I acquired about 100 Olympic pins through purchase and trading. I’m particularly proud of the groups of pins I was able to collect, such as one in which all the pins are in the shapes of guitars. My favorite are the blimp pins commemorating the Good Year blimp that helped in media coverage of the games. Can you tell me how the tradition of collecting pins began and what the market is like for Olympic pins today?

ANSWER: You certainly seemed to have amassed quite a number of pins during the Atlanta Games. Today, pins come in all shapes, colors, and sizes and represent a myriad of people, activities, and events at the Games. With the start of the Summer Olympics in Rio this week, it seems appropriate to take a look back and see how pin collecting began.

Pin collecting has become a sport unto itself. But it wasn’t always like that. The Olympic pin tradition began with small cardboard badges worn by athletes and officials at the first modern Olympic Games held in Athens, Greece in 1896. Athletes from competing teams traded them as a gesture of goodwill. At the 1908 Games in Paris, designs of pins grew as specific groups like judges, coaches, and reporters got involved.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) issued the first pins to be sold to spectators at the 1912 Games in Stockholm, Sweden. Today, the pins created for the 1940 games,  cancelled because of World War II, are highly sought after by collectors.

In 1968, the Mexico City games featured the first butterfly-clutch pin fastener, which  became the standard for Olympic pins. But it wasn’t until the 1984 Summer Games in Los Angeles, California, that trading pins became a tradition. Sponsoring companies, such as Coca-Cola, set up official trading stations to market their own pins. Because the pins were small and affordable, fans quickly seized the opportunity to bring home keepsakes for themselves. At the 1984 Los Angeles Games, some 17 million pins circulated among fans, participants, media representatives, and officials.

Pins began as a pre-social media form of communication that gave fans a reason to start a conversation with each other. The individual country Olympic committees, sponsors, bid cities, media outlets, and many others issue these colorful enameled pins today. Hundreds of thousands appear at each of the Games.

Pins are generally manufactured in limited numbered editions, and collectors seek out those produced in the smallest quantities or from the earliest Games. These also include pins issued by the various cities competing for a chance to host the Olympics.

Some of the most popular ones to collect are those from the smaller countries, such as Jamaica, the Seychelles, and Afghanistan. At the games, fans pin those they’ve collected onto a hat or the strap holding their Olympic credentials. As one fan walks by another, they look at each others’ pins and often one will ask where the other got a particular pin. From there, it’s onto trading and acquiring more pins. As the Games continue, fans try to either gather as many pins as possible or become selective as to the type of pins they want to collect.

The unwritten rule is to trade like pins for like pins. Of course, rules are meant to be broken and that’s the fun of it all. At the last Olympic Summer Games, fans were on the lookout for pins from Rio de Janeiro, the city to host the next Summer Games. At this Olympics, they’ll be on the lookout for pins from the next host city.

Somewhere in the host city, pin collectors representing pin collecting clubs from all over the world congregate to trade pins and stories. It won’t be any different in Rio. Also, hundreds of vendors set up tables to sell pins of every design and origin. Most of these cost about $5 each, so amassing a lot of them can cost a small fortune. The majority of people, however, acquire their pins by trading ones they have for ones they want.

Some collectors have over 30,000 pins in their collections. They’re always on the lookout for pins from the 1936 Berlin Games, a hot commodity in the pin collecting realm.

While it may seem that the only people trading pins are fans and athletes, everyone involved with the Olympics, from the members of the IOC to newspaper reporters, volunteers, judges, and coaches, all get involved.

It used to be that all you needed to do to begin collecting pins was to show up at the Olympics, find some pins and start trading. But today, beginning collectors can find thousands of pins online and while the fun of trading may not be there, the ability to collect just about any pin, even the important ones, is there—for a price.

Pin collecting is affordable and the little darlings don’t take up much room, so they’re ideal for anyone just starting out in collectibles. Searching the Internet for  “Olympic collectibles” will undoubtedly result in links for collecting pins.

An Israeli Olympic pin in the shape of a guitar from the Atlanta Games is today selling for $18 online. And while that same pin sells for a variety of prices, that’s not a bad return on investment. So let the pin games begin!

Promoting Through Time

QUESTION: I have an old clock with advertising for Jolly Tar Pastime Tobacco on it in raised letters. I’ve had the clock for a long time and never saw another one like it. Can you tell me anything about it?

ANSWER: You’re the lucky owner of a Baird advertising clock. You’ve no doubt seen pens and other items with printed advertising on them. But in the 1890s, a clock advertising a company was a novelty. Clocks promoted foods and beverages, household products, even medicines, such as Monells Teething Cordial for Children. They even advertised pet food like Clarke’s Patent Buffalo Meat Dog Cakes, endorsed by Queen Victoria, herself. Each clock says something different on it.

Born in Philadelphia in 1860, Edward Payson Baird went to work for the Seth Thomas Clock Company in 1879. In 1887, he left Seth Thomas to form his own company, the Baird Manufacturing Company, in Montreal, Canada,  to produce cases and doors for advertising clocks to house Seth Thomas movements. While he made his cases of pine or oak, he used papier-maché for the doors, with embossed letters around the clock face promoting the virtues of one product or another. Baird had numerous clients in the United States as well as in Canada and  Great Britain.

Baird used papier-maché for his clock doors because of the ready availability of wood pulp in Canada. By 1890, he moved his operation across the border to Plattsburgh, New York.  When economic circumstances forced him to close his Plattsburgh factory in 1896, Baird shifted his base of operations to Chicago, where he produced clocks with embossed, stamped tin advertisements. However, by that time interest in advertising clocks had begun to wane, so he concentrated his efforts on manufacturing parts for the fledgling telephone industry.

While some advertising brands, like Coca-Cola, are instantly recognizable and still exist today, many other products and brand names have long since disappeared. Baird clocks are the only clocks made from papier-maché that have advertising on them. Most resemble a figure 8. The top doors are 18 inches wide, while the bottom ones are 12 inches wide. While Baird clocks are 30½ long, Baird did make smaller 26-inch models. 

Baird also produced 18-inch-diameter gallery clocks. For the most part the dial on these clocks  measures 12 inches and the hands are straight, with a few exceptions. All Baird clocks have two doors unlike many other clocks produced at the time with only one door, giving access to the dial and pendulum.

A Baird clock in good working condition, with its original dial, glass, movement, and paint job, can sell for around $3,000. Some exceptional pieces sell for over twice that and higher. And well known brands, again like Coca-Cola, can sell for even more.

The Difference Between Real Collectibles and Created Ones

QUESTION: I have a 1939 New York World's fair desk calendar that has little knobs that change the date, month and a 1934 Chicago world's fair dish which could be silver plate with the federal building, electrical group, hall of science and travel and transport buildings embossed on the bottom.  Do these items have any value other than as keepsakes?

ANSWER: What you have are real collectibles. And while they may not be worth a fortune, they still have value in the collectible market. Unlike created collectibles, like decorated plates and such, objects like these, as well as those from 19th to mid-20th-century advertising, etc, can grow in value as the supply of them dwindles through breakage and deterioration. This is the cause of your uncertainty.

Collecting is one of the oldest hobbies. King Tut of Egypt collected walking sticks. Heiress Marjorie Merriweather Post collected Faberge originals. Franklin D. Roosevelt and King George VI of England collected stamps. There are also coin, doll, cup, and spoon collectors. All of them had one thing in common—the love of collecting unique and beautiful objects.

Why do so many people collect these objects? There’s a basic human need to possess items that have stood the test of time—items that have become a part of history.

Many people have the desire to own beautiful things but for mostly economic reasons, this isn’t possible. Up to the latter part of the 20th century, collecting valuable items has mostly been the hobby of the wealthy. To make it possible for the growing post-war  middle class to feel the same thrill of collecting as the rich, gift collectible manufacturers began to create items with implied value which the average person could afford and which, in time, were supposed to increase in value.

Collectibles manufacturers like the Franklin Mint began by minting special coins and producing figurines and plates. Eventually, people collecting these items grew into the largest group of collectibles collectors.

Part of the incentive of collecting is the inherent value of the object. While speculation was the motivation for collectible purchases in the late 1970's, most collectors today buy for the appeal of the item.

To keep the collecting public buying, manufacturers produced objects in series. This gave some people the incentive to purchase every piece in the series. The sad thing is that while the manufacturer guaranteed the value of the object with a certificate of authenticity, and that the value would definitely increase, they really had no control over the market they had created for their wares.

Another ploy of these manufacturers was the term “limited edition.” What this meant was that they'd produce only a certain number of each item, thus creating a built-in appreciation value. However, the number was often vague. For example, they guaranteed to produce ceramic items for a certain number of firing days, but no one knows just how many pieces they produced each day. Some of the more sought after items, such as Hummel figurines, had editions of 2,000 to 10,000.

In order to make their “collectibles” attractive to this new group of collectors, manufacturers made sure each piece evoked a nostalgic response in both men and women. The former liked the manly aura of collectible coins, military figurines, and model cars—the sportier and more luxurious the better. The latter like the beautiful images that adorned porcelain plates and delicate figurines, reminiscent of Meissen ware.

One of the most popular of the collectible figurine series was "Stormy Weather," picturing a little boy and girl huddled under an umbrella. The Goebel company introduced at least five new pieces a year, which kept collectors satisfied and the company in the black.

Collectible plates, which took up where magazine illustration left off, became the second most popular collectible. Some depicted characters from fantasy and fiction as well as adventurers, T.V. and film stars, and scenes of the past. Many were reminiscent of the old Saturday Evening Post covers. To create a cache for their collectibles, companies took on names such as the Bradford Exchange, giving collectors the impression that what they bought was an investment.

The plates created by Royal Copenhagen became some of the most popular. These familiar blue and white plates featured scenes from Danish life. Along with Hallmark and others, the company also produced collectible Christmas ornaments.

Ironically, these collectibles weren’t cheap. For all money they spent on them, collectors could have been buying real collectibles. These are objects tied to a certain event or period in history, such as 1939-1940 New York World’s Fair collectibles. Hundreds of companies produced over 25,000 different souvenirs in larger and smaller quantities for the Fair. Even early Coca-Cola advertisements and paraphernalia have value. Later manufactured Coca-Cola items, on the other hand, do not.

For more information on the created collectibles market, be sure to read this article, "9 Completely Worthless Collectibles."