REMINISCES OF A RECOVERING PIN COLLECTOR

BY

EUGENE STOVALL

I decided to make 2007 my last year to collect pins. Pin collecting has been fun, The hobby has taken me to Olympic Games, Super Bowls, All Star Games and Disneyana Conventions. And I have met many other pin enthusiasts ... some of whom have remained lifelong friends. But now my pin collecting has come to an end. No more Super Bowl and World Series press pins or Disney Christmas Day staff pins. I have simply no more room for any more pins. For the last several years now my buying, selling and trading has decreased dramatically. But I decided that in 2008 my pin collecting days would end.

This year I received a fortuitous nudge along the path of pin collecting abstinence earlier. I decided to test my commitment by not seeking the 2007 guest pins for two of the major grand slam tennis tournaments. NBC Sports has been producing a French Open and a Wimbledon Guest pin since 1985, when they hired Marvin Bader away from ABC Sports. Marvin Bader has been considered a genius in the design of pins. He designed ABC's Olympic Guest pins for many years. While my own pin collecting preferences have always tended towards media pins, there are few pins in my collection that I enjoy more than my NBC Executive Guest pins. It has been a practice since the early 1980s for NBC Sports to give pins to its guests attending great sporting events like the Super Bowl, MLB and NBA All Star Games, the Kentucky Derby and the U.S. Open. I have several NBC Executive pins in my collection and have always considered the NBC French Open and Wimbledon pins very special. So for me not to collect the highly valued French Open and Wimbledon pins in 2007 would be a stern test. But surprisingly enough, when the pins became available, I was not even tempted. However, my friend, Donna, contacted me about a 2007 MLB All Star Game Press Pin. And knowing how much I valued NBC pins, she included NBC's French Open Guest pin in the deal. The 2007 French Open NBC Executive pin was so ugly that I threw it in my junk pin box. And now I am happy knowing that I will be little tempted to purchase any of NBC's guest pins in the future.

Last week I was offered some Hard Rock Café pins including an Opening Staff pin and a Grand Opening pin for the now defunct Fort Lauderdale Hard Rock Café. It recalled for me how my friend Jimmy, a San Francisco Forty Niner fanatic, got me collecting Hard Rock Cafe pins. Jimmy's collection included many of the rarer Hard Rock Café staff pins. But he wanted Forty Niner pins. Jimmy wanted press, players. guest and alumni pins from the Forty Niner’s Super Bowl victories and offered to trade his Hard Rock Café pins for my Super Bowl pins. Over the years my friendship with Jimmy grew along with my collection of Hard Rock Café pins. So now I am happily looking forward to this final Hard Rock Cafe pin purchase with the same old enthusiasm as I began my pin collecting in 1984, twenty three years ago.

Eugene Stovall has collected pins since
1985. He has two pin collecting guides
Stovall’s Guide to Media Pins and
Stovall’s Guide to Disney Pins of
the Twentieth Century