8/4: RateMyCollection.com

Whilst not strictly London 2012 pin news, I've come across a website that may be of interest to readers of this blog.

RateMyCollection.com is billed as 'the global marketplace for presenting your collections'. It's a networking site for collectors to share their love for collecting and is based in the UK.

This site allows you to upload pictures and information about your collections and have readers review and rate them. There is a message board and it looks like a great way to interact with other collectors.

Not only that, but they have a limited number of pin badges to give away to the first readers to upload their collections as an incentive for joining the community. Each pin is individually numbered (shown below)

What not take a look and see if it's for you?

You can find the website at www.ratemycollection.com.

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

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

17/6: New Olympic Stamps for July

Whilst this is not strictly pin news, it is 'collectables' news, and these images will become pins eventually.

Royal Mail has kindly shared the images of the new Olympic stamps that they will be issuing in July on the 1 year to go day.

Click to view larger image

These 10 stamps are the last in the three sets of 10 stamps that have been issued since 2009. As usual the stamps come in many different forms such as mint, presentation packs, coin covers etc. There is one collectable though that is unusual. All 30 stamps from this set have been printed in one sheet over a background of the Olympic stadium at night (one of the original renders).

This item is priced at £13.80, and whilst it's not a limited edition, I don't remember when the Royal Mail have printed stamps from such a large programme in one sheet. If anyone knows better, please feel free to correct me in a comment.

Image of 10 stamps reproduced with permission from Royal Mail.

Image of the stamp sheet reproduced without permission from Norvic Philatelics website. If you collect GB stamps, you must use http://www.norvic-philatelics.co.uk - the best GB stamp site on the web. Norvic also contains full details of this Olympic stamp issue - click here.

14/3: Countdown Clocks

The countdown clocks were unveiled in Trafalgar Square this evening, and here are a couple of pictures, one showing the Olympic Games countdown and the other the Paralympic Games countdown.

The logos on each clock are illuminated from behind so they glow.

There were no London2012 / Omega pins around during the presentation, but I was lucky enough to see some Omega people as I was leaving (it was actually thanks to my daughter, but that's another story!) and managed to get a generic Omega pin.

The pin is 25x10mm and has no markings on the reverse.

Let's hope Omega or LOCOG release a pin of each clock, the shape would look fantastic on a pin.

28/7: Potential Merchandise (Not Pins this time!)

Not strictly a pin story but...

While I was waiting for the store launch yesterday, I met two guys from BL Sports. Their company is producing some of the bags that we'll be able to buy. They were kind enough to show me some of the pre-production products and let me take some pictures which they say are OK to share on the blog, so here goes...

Remember these are still in pre-production, so I presume subject to change. No word on dates that any of these may be available.

21/5: Modern Pentathlon Pictogram

Whilst not strictly a piece of pin news, it may have a knock on effect on the pins...

The pictogram towel available from the London 2012 shop contains a new version of the Modern Pentathlon pictogram. The pin badge shows a runner and 5 dots to signify the 5 different sports, but the towel has 'mini-images' of all 5 sports.

Perhaps the larger image size available on the towel allowed them to show all the sports. I guess that this image reduced to a pin would not show sufficient detail.

Any thoughts?