Monday 18 June 2012

18/6: Pin Meet 9 - Report

Last Saturday, we had our 9th unofficial pin meet. We returned to the John Lewis store in the Westfield, Stratford City complex. This venue is open to the public and therefore we had the chance to speak to lots of visitors and explain pin trading. Whilst the trades themselves were mainly confined to the pin-heads, we certainly raised the awareness amongst those we spoke to.

Lots of people in the room

The day was extremely busy with many successful trades being completed. We started around 11am and were still going strong at 4pm with very little quiet time during the day.

London 2012 came along to film the event in order to produce a promotional video for their website. Zoe Salmon was the host and took the time to speak to a couple of us about pins, collecting and what makes us collect.

Zoe Salmon looking over some pins
A collector explaining pin trading to Zoe

I'm pleased to say that as well as the usual faces, there were a number of new collectors there and several from Europe. It was certainly the busiest event so far.

Honav brought along a number of items to show us, the Olympic Torch relay set and a huge framed set of oversized mascot sport pins. The Torch Relay set caused a stir with members of the public and was very well received.

The Olympic Torch Relay set

They also teased us with new retail pin designs that we will see soon. These included the remaining countdown pins for 10, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1 day to go...

It's the final countdown...

 There was an Opening Ceremony pin...

The Opening Ceremony pin

They also brought along some of the 200+ national flag pins coming soon.

Just some of the national flag pins

We also saw a new sponsor pin form one of the traders. The meet provided the first sighting of the first pin from Arcelor Mittal.

Pin AM0001

Overall it was a very successful meet. There has been very positive feedback and we are all looking forward to the next one on Saturday 21st July which we hope will be able to be held as part of the Cocoa-Cola pin trading centre in Hyde Park. More details to follow soon.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Was there any suggestion that the national flags might be bundled into a collection? They look great but I'm not sure I could stretch to 200 x £6 for the lot!

noel 9 said...

I was told by "Lady Honav" that the Flag set will be sold for over £1000. (thus being the most expensive set to date ! ) But for that price does John come around and hang it on the wall for you ? I for one missed seeing John at the Meet, as I think many others did also. I have heard rumours that he could not attend as he was out searching for St Patrick and his Trans-gender friends. Well we did have Zoe Sammon to look at, but she is not as much fun as our John from Pin Heaven. Zoe is ok, but she is no Valerie Singleton !

A great time was had by all. Thanks J L P . Next time we get to do it in the Park ! I hope it does not rain. You can't trade rusty pins remember.

Anonymous said...

Hi Guys,
I can't believe I was on-call again and was forced to miss my 3rd pin meet, I will definetely! be at the next one!!

Quick question about the relay set, the 6 London badges look slightly bigger than the others, is this just one of those magic eye tricks or is that an accurate assumption?