Atlanta pricked by Olympic pin fever

ATLANTA, Georgia (JP): If you harbor an exhibitionistic drive and are seeking a way to express it decently, you should perhaps collect pins. Unlike stamps, these small broaches are easier to show off. You can fasten them to your shirt, hat, T-shirt, pullover or whatever you wear to attract people's attention.

However, if local pins can no longer satisfy your desires, because globalization makes you crave international recognition, you should make haste for Atlanta.

Thanks to the Olympics, the city has now turned into a global village for pinheads. It is teeming with pinheads, of all ages and from all walks of life parading and trading their treasured broaches. There is even a big building with the label "Pin University" in front of it, confirming that pin fever has gripped the city.

Jakarta Post photographer Arief Hidayat and Kompas reporter Rudy Badil experienced the 'excitement' first hand when browsing the "university", which turns out to be a mere pin shopping center.

"So you are from Indonesia? Where are your pins?" asked a shop assistant. "Oops, your flag looks like Monaco's. Unfortunately, there is "Indonesia" on it. Pins with Monaco's flag are among the rarest and most sought-after," he quipped.

The assistant did not seem very interested in exchanging his Federal Bureau of investigation (FBI) pins with Badminton Association of Indonesia pins. "FBI pins are rare. You know, they fetch hundreds of dollars," the experienced pin trader said in a very businesslike tone.

Pins issued by the FBI, the Central Intelligence Agency, the Drug Enforcement Agency or the other United States intelligence agencies are blue chips. They come in a set. Each set consists of 13 pins and costs US$900.

Indonesian pins, on the other hand, are little known. A big kiosk in the university has a large stock of Southeast Asian pins from Malaysia, Singapore, Thailand and the Philippines but not a single one from Indonesia.

Pin craze

The Indonesian amateurs are soon followed into the shop by an old codger. He wears a vest and a beret prickling with no less than 400 pins. His beret boasts around 40 pins from the FBI, DEA, CIA, the Pentagon, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, the Green Berets and etc. etc.; various sheriffs' emblems and a myriad of Summer Games' badges, from their Modern revival in 1896 in Athens to the present Games in Atlanta.

"How y'all doin?" His harsh southern drawl announces his presence. Glenn Johnson has been a pin collector since the Mexico Olympics in 1968. He is particularly proud of his Haile Sellasie pin.

"Only a few people have such a pin, which I keep in a bank deposit box. I got it from Olympic marathon champion Bikila Abebe. I traded it for my wristwatch," Johnson said of the pin which pictures the head of the late Ethiopian emperor Haile Sellasie.

Johnson, who found himself swamped by novice pinheads, stands in a corner to give his free lecture. Pins, he said, have to be rare and unique in design to be worth considering.

Hence, Olympic pins from Myanmar, Sierra Leonne or Angola, of which only a limited number are produced, for their athletes and officials, are highly prized. Street traders near the Peachtree Center subway are willing to buy them for up to $70.

Olympic pins from Switzerland and Denmark are also eagerly sought because the two European countries were reported to intentionally limit their issue. Shop traders at the "university" are usually happy to exchange them with an FBI pin.

Johnson said the materials from which the pins are made do not necessarily affect their prices. That's why, Johnson said he was willing to buy an uninteresting-looking red and white pin from a Polish athlete for US$400 at the London Olympics in 1948.

But Johnson might be wrong. Pins from most oil-rich Middle Eastern countries such as Saudi Arabia or Qatar are expensive because they are made of solid gold. "Who can afford buying them?" said a "university" trader. He added someone had ordered him to search for pins from the United Arab Emirates.

Expensive

Collecting pins, like collecting stamps, is an expensive hobby. You need to have a lot of money to create any sort of respectable collection. For instance, if you want to collect pins with the Atlanta Olympic mascot, Izzy, embossed on them, you will have to spend about $1,000 because there are about 200 different Izzy pins costing $5 each.

If that is the amount of money to be spent on only one type of Atlanta Olympic pin, consider how much money you need if you want to buy all the pins specifically issued for the Atlanta Games.

An avid pin collector named Douglas said there were about 3,500 Atlanta Olympic pins in circulation here. "To buy them all means to spend $17,500. This amount is perhaps not much for the rich, but too gigantic for me. I don't have that much money," he said.

Novice collectors are usually told to buy a set of 23 Olympic pins, representing all the Games in the modern era, made by the Atlanta Committee in 1995 for $150. Of course, only the Atlanta Olympics pin is genuine. The other 22 are reproduction.

Douglas, who finds solace in his pin collection, said he had set a target of obtaining pins from all the 197 countries taking part in the Atlanta Summer Games, through barter deals.

"I have got almost all of them. I got an Indonesian pin a week ago. There are a bird and a shuttle cock on it. Well, the pin's name is... gaa roo dah. Is it your state symbol?"

For pinheads with limited budgets, like Douglas, thematic collecting may solve the problem. It is often more meaningful, too. For instance, you can specialize in collecting only pins which bear the five Olympic rings.

A young Briton said he favored Hong Kong pins because next year the British crown colony will revert to Chinese sovereignty .

It must be a smart thematic move given that pins from the defunct Union of the Soviet Socialist Republics, the late Czechoslovakia and the bygone Yugoslavia are in great demand.

Traders said pins from Lithuania, Uzbekistan, Ukraine, Azerbaijan and the other former Soviet republics sell like hot cakes. Pins from Georgia, a former USSR republic in the Caucasus mountain bordering the Black sea, are particularly popular because the name is shared by the U.S. state which hosts the Atlanta Olympics. Today the flames of the Centennial Olympic Games will be extinguished, ending the 17-day world sporting extravaganza. But the friendship or business flame ignited by the pin fever will perhaps never die. It may just fade away to resurge in Sydney in the year 2000.