Saturday 30 July 2011

30/7: More Sponsor Pins Spotted

An update on the 1 Year To Go Pins as well as some more sponsor pins that have been seen.

Firstly a photo of the EDF 1 Year To Go that I mentioned on Wednesday.


This is pin EDF0008 and is limited to 500 pieces.

Next is another version of the Adidas 500 days to the Paralympic Games pin.


This pin is the pink version and shows sitting basketball and is also numbers ADI0004 like the other two seen to date.

Now another pin from UPS.


This is a printed pin and shows the UPS logo along with an orange 2012 logo and a gymnast pictogram on blue heart. This is pin UPS0006, and so leaves a gap in the numbering of their pins as the priginals were pins 1-4.

Finally a first pin from the National Lottery. This combines a pronted Lottery logo along with an enamelled 2012 logo and the strapline 'be  part of it'. This pin is numbers NAL0001.

30/7: New Mascot Sport and Retail Update

A short update tonight...

Mandeville has a new sport pin available. This one is Athletics (Running). As before, issue size is 10,000 and the price is £6.50

Pin 0496

Also, the mascot 'pose' pins - police and union flag are now in general release. These are the boxed sets (larger) and individual enamel (smaller) pins that have been restricted to the official shop to date.

Thursday 28 July 2011

28/7: Dogs, Alphabet, Mascot Street Scenes and More Stamp Pins

As well as sponsor pins issued for 1 Year To Go, it looks like a wave of retail pins became available yesterday - but only at John Lewis Oxford street. The department has been expanded and re-arranged and the range on offer is much improved on my previous visits.

The had 3 new sets that I could see - Dogs (20 pins), Alphabet (26 pins) and Mascot Street Scenes (4 or 6 pins I think). I've shown an example of the first 2 sets but do not have an image of the third at the moment.

The dogs being shown are King Charles Spaniel, Beagle, Corgi, Springer Spaniel, Bulldog, German Shepherd, Greyhound, Labrador, Douge de Bordeaux, Daschund, Pug, Golden Retriever, Cocker Spaniel, Miniature Schnauzer, Staffordshire Bull Terrier, Border Terrier, Shih Tzu, Boxer, West Highland White Terrier, Yorkshire Terrier. Each dog is accompanied by either the Olympic of Paralympic logo as a 'dangler' under the pin and the dog's collar is the same colour as the logo.



As for the alphabet, the letters being shown are A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H... (you get the idea!)


Each letter comes with a coloured logo in the order pink, orange, green, blue, Paralympic. The colours cycle round. I know one reader will feel compelled to comment on the order of colours !

The mascot street scenes show Wenlock and Mandeville alongside post boxes an the like and these are printed pins where the mascots are coloured and shown against a dark blue background.

No word on issue sizes or price, but from memory, the dogs were £7.50 each.

Finally, the next 9 Royal Mail stamp pins are now available directly from the Royal Mail or from John Lewis. The sports on disply this time are Football, Shooting, Hockey, Goalball, Cycling, Rowing, Taekwondo, Boxing and Modern Pentathlon. When the original stamps in this series were issued last year, table tennis was included, but at the moment that pin has not been issued. No word yet on when or if we will see it. The aquatics pin from the first series is also still be be released. Interestingly, the archery and equestrian pins issued in this series earlier this year do not seem to be available any longer from the Royal Mail. Pictures of the new stamp pins, and also the latest stamps to be issued yesterday, will be added to the website as soon as possible.

28/7: Sponsor & Internal 1 Year To Go Round Up

A busy day for 1 Year to Go pins yesterday. Thanks to excellent and persistent detective work by some readers, here's news of what was released yesterday.

An internal 1 Year To Go pin was issued to all LOCOG and ODA staff


This is pin LOC0015 and has the words 'Thank You' printed on the back

Next a range of sponsor pins from Lloyds, Cadbury, Eurostar and EDF (no picture yet)




The Eurostar pin comes in 3 colours - yellow, white and blue and I believe the picture is the same on each. 

If anyone knows of any other sponsor or internal pins issued yesterday, please get in touch (with a photo if you can).

Wednesday 27 July 2011

27/7: 1 Year To Go Round Up

This is just a short post to say that there were some new pins out today, sponsor and internal, but as I'm just coming back from London, there will be no pictures tonight! I'll update as soon as I can.

27/7: Coca Cola 1 Year To Go Pin

Here is the latest countdown pin from Coca Cola - the 1 Year To Go pin.

Pin COC0004
This pin is limited to 6,100 pieces and like previous Coca Cola pins is partly made from recycled materials.

Tuesday 26 July 2011

26/7: First Media Pin Issued

Next, what is probably the first media pin officially released in connection with the London 2012 Games. Just in case anyone mentions the CTV pin which appeared on eBay - my belief is that the pin was never officially issued. This pin comes from 'insidethegames.biz' who are a media company that reports the latest news form the Olympics and Paralympics.


I should declare an interest at this point! As some of you know elements of my website and this news blog are published under the 'insidegamescollecting.biz' banner, so whilst I have not accepted money for this post, I did get a free pin!

Anyway, the pin is issued on a card and as you can see is limited to 365 pieces. Whilst it doesn't contain the logo or 'London 2012' words, the organisation is an Olympic accredited media company and part of the Olympic family and therefore probably should be recognised as the first media pin of the Games.

26/7: New sponsor pin - John Lewis

As we move into the 1 year to go celebrations, I hope there will be a flurry of pin news coming up this week. To start off, news of a new sponsor pin.


John Lewis have produced 4 pins for their staff. They have the logo in all for London 2012 colours - pink, orange, blue and green. The pin reference is JLS0001 and is the same for all 4 colours.

Saturday 23 July 2011

23/7: 3rd Unofficial London 2012 Pin Traders Pin Meet

The pin meet held today was a great success with 19 people attending. I would like to thank everyone who came along for taking part. Hopefully we will get even bigger turnouts as time goes on. I hope all the 'first-timers' found the meet a friendly place and got a chance to meet fellow collectors.


Thanks also to Jan and the staff at the Railway Tavern. As before they were excellent hosts and we appreciate them letting us have the space for nothing.

Finally thanks to the sponsors Coca Cola, BT and EDF who gave us each a pin. Both BT and Coca Cola were able to share their 1 year to go pin with us and I know from the response in the room, everyone really appreciated the sponsor support. We were lucky enough to have a senior member of the Coca Cola London 2012 team attend and hear first-hand what pin traders would like to see in the Coca Cola trading centres next year. Honav also very kindly donated some non-London 2012 pins too.

If you didn't manage to make the event today, I'm looking to set up another for late September or early October depending on venue availability. Watch this space as I'll be asking for opinions on dates soon. 

Monday 18 July 2011

18/7: BT Storytellers

Keeping with the BT theme, here's a bit of shameless self promotion...


Last week I was selected to be a BT Storyteller. My website and blog has been selected by BT as one of the projects which will document the story of the London 2012 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The programme has selected artists, social networkers, bloggers etc and will showcase their work and view of what the Games means to them.

If you would like to know more you can check out the BT Storytellers website or if you're feeling brave, you can read my profile - click here

18/7: First Sponsor 1 Year To Go Pin

The first sponsor 1 Year To Go pin has been announced by BT. This is pin BT0005 and follows the style of their previous countdown pins.


No issue size information is available for this at the moment, but there were 6,000 of the BT 2 Years To Go pin. This is the pin that BT have kindly donated to the pin meet, so everyone who has registered and attends will get one of these.

Saturday 16 July 2011

16/7: Two New Mascot Sports Pins

Wenlock tries out two new sports in the latest mascot pins. This time it's football and water polo.

Pin 0526 - Water Polo

Pin 0529 - Football

As with the other mascot sports pins, these are limited to 10,000. Both are prices at £6.50 and available now.



Thursday 14 July 2011

14/7: London 2012 Ingots

You may have noticed recently that I have expanded the website to list some other London 2012 collectables - stamps, coins and ingots.

I've collected stamps and coins for years and the London 2012 issues for each of these were obvious items for me to collect. As I love making lists, I thought it would be a good idea to add some details about the items to the website.

I came across the collectable ingots earlier in the year and they looked like a decent collectable to me and so with the manufacturers assistance, I have listed these on the website too.



Yesterday, I found that one of the pin retailers, Glamorous Living, was stocking the ingots too, so if you're interested in these items, then take a look at the pages on my website http://www.londonpins.co.uk/ingots and also their website http://www.glamorousliving.co.uk/viewcategory.php?groupid=14

Wednesday 13 July 2011

13/7: 400 Days to Go - Paralympic Version

It's Mandeville's turn to celebrate the 400 day to go milestone with a new pin available from next week. The 400 days to the Paralympic Games falls on 26 July, the day before the Olympic 1 Year To Go day.

This pin is limited to 2,012 pieces and is priced at £6.50.

13/7: Pin Trading Lists

I've been thinking for a while as to how I can create a 'database' of sponsor and internal pins that collectors can use to log their wants and offers so that pin trading becomes a little easier.

I didn't want to use a paid service (remember all this is self-funded), and didn't want to rely on free online databases with limitations. I also didn't want to assume everyone had the latest software on their machines - let's not even start on machine specifications and browser versions.

Anyway, I think I have a fairly basic but easy to use system using Google Spreadsheets which I hope is available to most if not all of us. Apologies if I have disenfranchised anyone by using this software, but believe me I have tried to make it as accessible as possible.

I have created two spreadsheets (one for sponsor and one for internal), where all the available pins are listed down the left hand side, and the pin trader's name and email address are listed along the top. Each person can maintain their wants and offers by typing into the rows under their name.

Now this relies on everyone being sensible and only changing their data, and not deliberately trying to mess it up. Edit access will be restricted to those who email me and ask for access, but everyone can read it. Remember if you use it and and give me an email address, that email address will be visible to the world so you may want to create a special one for the purpose.

Take a look at the following link

https://spreadsheets.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AiFmJ9DZewDldEh4QzlQaGc2QWh3bGRJTVpRUS1UdkE&hl=en_US

If you would like to use it, drop your name and email to info@londonpins.co.uk and I'll add you on - then you can start updating your wants and offers.

I've taken the liberty of adding regular contributors Wookie and Timo as an example of what the sheet would look like with more than just me on there.

If people think this idea will work, I'll add the link as an option from the website.

Up until now, some readers have been using the message board to list their wants and offers, but sometimes it's hard to keep up when pins come and go from your collection. I hope you agree, this way will be better in the long run.

If you do register and start using the lists, please don't be tempted to edit the structure. If you think something could be better, just email me and we can see what could be changed.

Let me know what you think.

Update : I've just found out that in order to sign-in and edit the sheet you need to have a Google account. I hadn't noticed before as the London Pin semail is based on Google Mail, so it never occurred to me. So if you want to log your wants and offers, I'm afraid I need to ask you to set up a free Google account. At least you won't have to share your normal email address with the world. Sorry for the confusion.

Sunday 10 July 2011

10/7: New Internal Pins

Some of you may have noticed some additions to the internal catalogue over the past few days, as there have been a few new LOCOG and ODA pins spotted. For those that haven't, here's a round-up.

From LOCOG come 2 pins from the Rate Card team. For those that don't know, when visiting media and NOCs attend the Games they can order items such as office equipment or electrical appliances that they need. The rate card team fulfil those orders (I think that's it anyway!). Hence the rate card pins show Wenlock and Mandeville with a shopping trolley - obviously collecting items for an order.

Pin LOC0012

Pin LOC 0013

The next pin from LOCOG is too mark the second Licensing and Retail workshop that took place last month. Not sure of the significance of the tour bus though, maybe the delegates were taken on a park tour?

Pin LOC0014

Next from the ODA comes two pins (one logo and one Paralympic logo) of the Olympic Stadium. These are the latest in the 'Great Team Effort' pins given to workers in the park.

Pin ODA0013

Finally 2 'Arts and Culture' pins (with logo and Paralympic logo versions) to recognise the pieces of art being installed in the park I think.

Pin ODA0024

Friday 8 July 2011

8/7: 1 Year To Go Pins Become Rarest To Date

There has been a change to the issue size of two of the 1 Year To Go Pins that now makes them the rarest retail pin issued to date.

The mascot 'peep' pins were originally to be issued as 5,000 pieces each - click here for the original post. However today I have been informed that the 'peep pins, shown below, will not exceed 1,000 pieces each. This makes these pins the smallest issue size for a commemorative pin so far.



As I've mentioned before, the 3 and 2 year to go pins were limited to 3,000 pieces each and sold out within 2 weeks of launch, so I wonder if these will be snapped up quickly.

Wednesday 6 July 2011

6/7: One Year To Go Pins Released

The 1 year to go pins have been announced today and there are 5 in all - the traditional 'shard' countdown pin and 4 mascot pins. As expected, the shard pin is green and follows the colour sequence of the annual countdown pins that was used in the original logo pins - pink orange, blue and green. The issue size for the shard pin is 5,000 which is the same as the 4 year to go pin. The 3 year and 2 year pins were limited to 3,000 and both of these pins have sold out.

Pin 0605 - 1 YTG Shard

Pin 0627 - Wenlock and 1 YTG Flag

Pin 0628 - Mandeville and 1 YTG Flag

Pin 0629 - Wenlock and 1 YTG Sign

Pin 0630 - Mandeville and 1 YTG Sign

Each will be available before the 1 year to go day on 27th July and the issue sizes are 5,000 for the shard and 'head' pins and 10,000 for the 'flag' pins. Prices are £6.50 for the shard and 'flag' pins and £6 for the 'head' pins.

Monday 4 July 2011

4/7: Olympin Pin Club Reminder

The guys at the Olympin club have asked me to mention that they will be attending a massive collectors show in Chicago in August where they hope to recruit a number of new members. They tell me there is a real chance that they may issue all the remaining 2011 Olympin Club pins that contain the London 2012 logo.

If you were thinking about joining (if only to get the club pin for this year and next, let alone the information and membership list) then you may not want to wait too long.

You can read all about the club and their offer to UK members  - click here for the original article and an image of this year's club pin.

Sunday 3 July 2011

3/7: Another Sponsor Agrees to Support the Pin Meet

I'm pleased to say that EDF have kindly agreed to support the pin meet in July with the offer of a pin for a number of attendees. I do not know which pin they will be able to offer or the number we may get, however I have given them the number of confirmed attendees and I think they will do their best to make sure there's something for everyone.

Thank you to EDF for their very kind offer, I'm sure all the pin collectors who plan to attend will be very grateful for their support.

I have one more sponsor that I'm talking to, so news of that if it happens.

So just to remind you, at the moment, we have support from Coca Cola, BT and now EDF.