29/3: Cats and Other Pets

Given that we've already seen dog pins, it's probably only natural that there are some cat pins and pins for other pets!

14 new pins have been announced - 5 showing cats and 9 with other pets on them. 4 are shown here and the pins are numbered 0931 - 0944.

Pin 0934

Pin 0936

Pin 0938

Pin 0940

As with the previous animal pins the name of the animal is printed into the background and the Olympic or Paralympic logo is suspended underneath the animal.

The 14 pins are

Siamese cat
Burmese cat
British shorthair cat
Moggy
Jinx
Rabbit
Guinea Pig
Hamster
Budgies
Parrot
Chicken
Pony
Goldfish
Tortoise

No information on issue size or price so far.

What's a Jinx?
In that list of cats, you may have noticed a 'Jinx'. I'm no cat expert, but has anyone ever heard of a Jinx? The only Jinx cat I can find is the cartoon cat with Pixie and Dixie (now I'm showing my age). Ideas anyone?

Pin 0925 - but what's a Jinx?

27/3: More IOC Logo Pins

Back in October 2011, the first of the IOC Museum pins were issued. These pins depicted posters and logos from previous Olympic Games and used designs taken from the IOC Museum.

The remaining logo pins are now being issued and should be available from the end of this week. The pins display logos from Games such as Paris 1924 and Beijing 2008 as well as a pin displaying the logo of the IOC Museum itself.

Pin 0779

Pin 0798

Pin 0799

Although the original issue size for these pins was planned to be 5,000 pieces each, I'm told that these latest pins will be limited to 600 pieces each. If you consider that 500 of every pin is being retained for the complete sets to be produced later this year, then only 100 of each of these pins will be available to buy. If you collect this series, be ready to move quickly.

These pins will be available later this week and are priced at £6 each.

27/3: Retail Update

News of some changes to issue sizes and some more sold out pins today...

The recently released lower case letter pins are marked as being from an issue size of 3,000 each. I've been told though, that in fact no more than 900 of each of these pins will be produced. Given that 500 of each will be retained for the complete sets to be issued when all 2,012 pins are available, it means that only 400 of each will be available for retail. Remember that some of the upper case letters have started to sell out, so it's possible that some of these new letters may be a bit harder to get as time goes on.

More pins are now sold out at the manufacturer, although some stocks may be available at the retailers for a while. The pins in question are

0073 Soldier
0133 Olympic Pictogram - Swimming
0137 Olympic Pictogram - Athletics
0139 Olympic Pictogram - Basketball
0146 Olympic Pictogram - Track Cycling
0151 Olympic Pictogram - Football
0152 Olympic Pictogram - Artistic Gymnastics
0156 Olympic Pictogram - Hockey
0157 Olympic Pictogram - Judo
0159 Olympic Pictogram - Rowing
0171 Paralympic Pictogram - Athletics

27/3: Pin Promotion/Trading at John Lewis - April

On Tuesday 10th April, Honav are organising a pin promotion event in the London 2012 shop in John Lewis, Oxford Street.
There will be a lucky dip on offer to everyone who buys two or more pins in a single transaction, with one dip per person.

John Lewis will set aside an area for pin trading, so there will be an opportunity for collectors to swap pins and for customers to get a look at pin trading in action.

A collector told me at the weekend that the London 2012 shop has been expanded, so it will be a good chance for you to take a look at one of the flagship London 2012 shops if you haven't been there for a while.

The day will start at 9.30am.

I plan to approach the sponsors to see if there is a chance for any free pins, especially as we are close to 100 days to go. If you plan to drop in through the day for some trading, then send me an email to info@londonpins.co.uk just in case there are any freebies and also so we can judge how many traders may turn up. I realise that as it's a weekday some people may not be able to get there.

26/3: 100 Day to Go Pins

With the 100 days to go milestone fast approaching, here are the pins that will be available to mark both the Olympic (18th April) and Paralympic (21st May) dates.

As for previous releases, there will be a 'shard' version as well as one for each mascot. These pins show each mascot in their 'Breaking the Tape' pose.

Pin 0929 

Pin 0930

Pin 0948

This time, I'm told the pins will not be available to buy until the day. Each pin is limited to 2,012 pieces but a large number of each have already been snapped up by London 2012 stakeholders (not my word!) meaning that there will be limited numbers available for retail sale. I don't have a clear definition of how small those numbers will be, but if you collect countdown pins, I wouldn't hang around on the day.

I'm not sure if your favourite sellers will have stock in advance of April 18th. Each pin is priced at £7.

25/3: Retailer Update

A couple of brief updates tonight from two of the retailers popular with collectors.

Coin Bazaar has now started stocking the Royal Mail Olympic stamp products as well as pins and coins. Those of you that collect across various product line may want to check out the updates to the site...

Click here for the Stamp and Pin packs and click here for the stamp and coin packs.

Remember that the 30 stamp pins issued by the Royal Mail are part of the 2,012 retail pins that will be issued by London 2012.

The second update is from Glamorous Living. They are now selling the white London street scene pins individually. Click here to see more.

21/3: ODA Pin Backstamps

Some of you may be aware of a number of ODA pins being sold on eBay without the usual pattern and backstamp. The reason given for this is that ODA pins are being faked and that real pins are now being made with this new back to make them more difficult to copy.

I have confirmed today with an official source that all the genuine ODA pins have the usual repeating pattern and Honav backstamp seen on every other ODA pin.

So if you see these pins on eBay and you're happy with the design and the price, then fair enough. But please don't think you are buying a genuine pin issued by the ODA to their staff and contractors.

Thanks to a reader for sharing the image of one of these pins.

20/3: Exclusive Torch Bearer Pin

An exclusive Torch Bearer pin has been spotted. The pin will be available only to those who have been selected to run with the torch.

17/3: Pin Meet in June

I'm pleased to announce that John Lewis in Stratford have offered us the Stadium Suite to hold a pin meet in June. Following the meet there in January, I approached them to ask if perhaps we could return at some point, and they have very kindly agreed.

The details are as follows...

• Date: Saturday 16th June
• Venue: The Stadium Suite, 3rd Floor, John Lewis, Westfield Stratford City
• Time: Still to be confirmed, but approximately 12pm until 5pm
• Nearest station: Stratford

The meet will be held on the 41 days to go mark and be almost halfway through the torch relay, so hopefully there may be a selection of sponsor pins around.

I will be approaching some sponsors to see if they are able to support the meet with free pins.

Honav have confirmed they will be able to support the meet, so watch out for more details.

As with previous events, please sign up to register your interest and get your place in the queue for any free pins that may be on offer. Drop me an email at info@londonpins.co.uk.

Thank you to John Lewis for supporting us once again, and I hope we can build on the very successful meet we held there previously by making this one even bigger and better.

By the way, don't forget there is a pin meet scheduled for 19th May at the Railway Tavern in Stratford and we may get together around 100 days to go in April - I'm just waiting to see if there are any official events on the day.

14/3: Local Leaders Pin

About a month ago, I wrote about the Local Leaders programme and the pin they were issuing. The pins have now started to arrive.

The pin combines a pink shard shape with 'Local Leaders' printed on it, a map pin - a symbol used in the Local Leaders programme and a pair of London 2012 logos.

The backstamp indicates that this is an internal pin - it is number LOC0033. There are no details of the issue size printed on the pin.

Thanks to Robert for the image and the details.

12/3: Lowercase Alphabet Pins

Following on from the alphabet pins that were issued previously, London 2012 have now issued a set of lowercase letters to compliment them.

Where the previous set were silver letters and coloured logos, these appear to be coloured letters and silver logos. From the images it seems that the pins have a sparkly appearance.

Pin 0355

Pin 0370

Each pin is limited to 3,000 pieces like the original set and the pin numbers are 355 to 380. Expect to see them at your favourite retailers at the end of the week. The price of each pin is £6.

11/3: Coca-Cola Pin Trading Centre - Details and Volunteer Form

At the pin meet yesterday, Coca-Cola were able to share a few details about the Coca-Cola pin trading centres for London 2012 and the pin centre volunteer programme.

The main points were

• There will be three centres, one in the Olympic Park situated near the stadium, one in Hyde Park and one in the Athletes' Village.
• Volunteers will be required for all 3 locations.
• The number of shifts allocated and the lengths of those shifts will depend on the number of volunteers that sign-up.
• If you would like to volunteer, you need to complete an application form (link below) and submit it to Coca-Cola.
• Completing an application form does not commit you to volunteering at this stage.
• Application forms must be submitted by midnight on Friday 16th March.
• All volunteers will be asked to attend an informal interview either at the Coca-Cola offices in London or via Skype for those that live outside the UK or cannot get to London.
• Applicants will be informed around Wednesday 21st March whether they are invited to an interview.
• Interviews will take place on Saturday 24th and Sunday 25th March.

Update 18/3: The window for applications has now closed and therefore I have updated this post to remove the application form.

11/3: Pin Meet 6 - Report

I'm pleased to say that the 6th Unofficial London 2012 Pin Collectors meet was very well attended and from the feedback I received on the day and in emails, it seems that everyone had a successful meet.

Firstly I'd like to start with some thanks...

To everyone that was able to make it, thank you for supporting the events and travelling from various locations to be there.
To Coca-Cola, thank you for taking the time to join us and share the news about the pin trading centres (more of that in a blog post to follow today) and for talking to us all to understand what we love about pins and trading.
To Honav, thank you for taking the time to listen to the comments and suggestions from many of the collectors that were there.
To the owners and staff at the Railway Tavern, thank you for allowing us to use the conservatory.
To EDF for giving pins to the attendees. The earliest people to register were given a 200 DTG paralympic pin and everyone else received an EDF/London2012 logo pin.

As for what happened...

Even though the events was due to start at 2.30pm, it seems we start a little earlier each time. A few gathered for a pre-meet lunch and trading started over lunch! It was good to see friends and catch up with the progress of collections. There was plenty of conversation regarding potentially fake pins on eBay and suspect backstamps on pins. From conversations I had, it seems that most people made some useful trades and many commented on the fact they had been able to find pins they didn't expect to. Everyone felt it had been a worthwhile trip.

Coca-Cola were able to confirm the pin trading centre locations and talk about the pin centre volunteer programme. I'll repeat what they said about the process in a blog post to follow this one today. Their two pin designers were able to join us and they had conversations with many people to see what London 2012 pin collectors were looking for. I think the general sense was that the pins that Coca-Cola issue for London 2012 were going to be different from those we may have seen before. I think there will be a sense of fun in their pins.

Two US members of Olympin - Don and Mike, joined us and were pleased to meet the London pin collectors. Hopefully they have seen we are a small but enthusiastic group.

To those collectors who were not able to join us, sorry you couldn't be there for whatever reason. Hopefully you may be able to make the next meet in May.

Thanks again to all of you who made the day such a success and a great deal of fun.

6/3: New Festival Pin Announced

News today of a new pin to celebrate the summer-long London 2012 festival programme. The pin uses the London 2012 logo in pink WITHOUT the Olympic rings on a silver background with the word 'Festival' recessed in the background.

Pin 1065

This is pin 1065 and there's no information on issue size at the moment. Price will be £5 and it should be available but he end of the week.

6/3: Pin Meet Photo in London 2012 'Local Leaders' email

The eagle-eyed amongst you who have signed up as Local Leaders (LL) may have noticed that the last pin meet is featured in the photo in the LL email we received today. I missed it until it was pointed out on the message board. Unfortunately there's no mention of the meet in the text.

Here's a clip from the top of the email.

5/3: Pin Collectors Meet - Saturday 10th March

A final invite to anyone who would like to join us at the next London 2012 Pin Collectors meet this Saturday - 10th March 2012.

We will be meeting at 2.30pm in the Railway Tavern, Angel Lane, Stratford.

The meet is completely free to join and we would love to see as many pin collectors there as possible.. It doesn't matter if you have a huge set of pins to trade or you are just starting out with your London 2012 collection.

We are a friendly bunch and you will get the chance to meet and talk to fellow collectors.

Representative from Coca-Cola will be there and I hope they will be able to share some details about the Coca-Cola pin trading centres.

If you haven't already put your name down, or you would like some more information, please drop me a line at info@londonpins.co.uk.

4/3: New Countdown and Olympic pins in the US

It looks like Aminco are gearing up as we approach the Games. A new range of pins has been announced that should be available through April.

The first pins that we should see are countdown and show Wenlock at 6 months and possibly 100 days (still waiting for more information).

The remaining pins are more British Life and more traditional Olympic handover pins.

The British Life pins show a policeman's helmet, Wenlock and a post box, a bowler hat, a taxi and a cake stand.

The handover pins show Beijing/London and Vancouver/London handovers. The national flags pin which looked like it was being issued a while ago also looks like it's now being released.

As with all other Aminco pins issued under the USOC licence, these are made for sale to the US market only.

2/3: Gold and Silver Mascots

Hot on the heels of gold and silver logos, come gold and silver mascots. These new pins show Wenlock and Mandeville in their 'core' pose but now completely in silver and gold.

Pin 1051

Pin 1052

Pin 1055

Pin 1056

These pins are limited to 10,000 pieces each and are priced at £6. I understand these will be released shortly possible next week or the week after.

Update: These should be available around 9th March from your preferred retailer.

1/3: New Logo Pins

The gold and silver logo pins spotted at the pin meet in Stratford back in January are soon to be released. The combine a shiny and frosted effect for an excellent looking pin.

Pin 1049

Pin 1050

Pin 1053

Pin 1054

These pins are approximately the same size as the original logo pins rather than a mini- or midi- version. I understand they will be available shortly and the price will be £6. No information yet on issue sizes.

Update: The issue size for each of these pins is 50,000. One of the designs (1053 - the gold Olympic logo) is already sold out, but don't worry there are more coming in around 6 weeks. The initial batch of pins was completely taken by Marks & Spencer and that is why our regular retailers may not have them for a while. If you cannot wait, get down to M&S!