Olympic Pin Trading: A Tradition Fans Still Love (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: This is an Olympic tradition you might not know about and it's been going on for decades. It's called pin trading. So I'm about to do my first pin trade, never done one before. I bought my first pin this morning. This is the day off pin.

[00:00:18] Speaker 2: It's great.

[00:00:19] Speaker 1: And so what will you trade me for?

[00:00:22] Speaker 2: Well, I will trade you anything that you'd like on here. But I have one I'll suggest and that is a USA pin. If you'd like that, those are very popular.

[00:00:32] Speaker 1: Amazing. Okay, I will accept.

[00:00:34] Speaker 2: Some pins may go for $300, $400. I've seen pins as high as $2,000.

[00:00:41] Speaker 3: That's my very first pin. I love collecting the pins at the Olympics I go to. They're very special. So while I'm here, I try to get venue pins or mascot pins.

[00:00:49] Speaker 1: And how long have you been a pin trader?

[00:00:51] Speaker 4: I've been a pin trader since 1972. My first games was in Munich when I was 10 years old. By the end of the games, I wound up with 60 pins. Hi, I'm Andrew. I have a problem. Would you do a trade with me?

[00:01:04] Speaker 1: I'll give you one. You'll give me one?

[00:01:05] Speaker 4: Yes, that's a torch relay pin from Vancouver 2010. And I actually ran with the torch. That's what this is all about. You make friends. Right here in this room, all these different pin collectors, I probably know half of them.

[00:01:23] Speaker 1: The origins of the Olympic pins can be traced back to the first modern games of Athens in 1896, where delegations wore official cardboard badges. But the trading of pins first began in the 1980s and is still going strong.