26/4: Retail Update

The 33 Borough pins and 2 Vancouver bridge pins are available in the London 2012 online shop (they've been there since last week - I'm a bit behind on writing up my news!).

The Museum of London tells me they have the Borough pins in stock and available in their museum shop (call ahead if you're going, just to make sure), and they should be in their online shop this week.

Pins and Things has the Vancouver bridge pins on their website.

14/4: News Update

It's been a bit quiet lately, but the new online shop brought 4 new flowers pins. The inventory has been updated with the new pin details.

The last remaining pictograms are now available and once again, the images on the inventory have been updated.

Some other news items...

There IS a boxed set of the London Borough pins, but the bad news is, they will not be available for retail. There will be 100 sets used as giveaways in a regular and repeating prize draw across the boroughs and as VIP gifts. The 33 individual pins will be available via the online store and other retailers such as the Museum of London. They should also be available locally within each borough in the form of a mail order.

On the sponsor side, there is good progress on the first pin from a Tier 3 sponsor which hopefully will be announced soon.

That's it for now, but more news as and when I have it.

13/4: London 2012 Online Shop Goes Live

The official online shop opened today with clothing and collectibles. The range of pins being stocked is very comprehensive, with 4 new pins available for the first time. The new ones are the 'Autumn Flowers' collection.

Unfortunately the Borough pins and Vancouver/London bridge pins are not there, so let's hope they appear soon.

The online store can be found at http://shop.london2012.com/

9/3: London Landmark Pins Released

As hoped, LOCOG announced the London Landmark pins today. They are a lovely set and make great use of the angular nature of the logo and brand and use tones of the 4 main LOCOG colours. The landmarks themselves are picked out in silver and have a slight relief to them - they are not completely flat.

Pins are limited to 3000 of each (still to be confirmed).

Click here for the official website page

Click here for a list and images

As an example (and because I live in LB Sutton), here's my 'home' pin

Image reproduced from www.london2012.com

Notice that the names of the boroughs are not written in the 'brand font'. Most of the previous pins that have had writing on used that font - look at the London at Night set. It's not always the case, the 1000DTG pins used a mixture of fonts, but it's interesting that these pins use a 'regular' typeface for the names.

The press release sites all the usual retailers, so hopefully they'll be available in the next week or so.

4/3: London Landmark (Borough) Pins

Looks like the London Borough pins are very close now. Digging around on the internet I came across the London Councils website (www.londoncouncils.gov.uk). There's a section on meetings and specifically about a Leaders Committee meeting next Tuesday (9th March). There's an agenda item about London 2012 and in a document related to that meeting there's information relating to the unveiling of the pins.

For copyright reasons, I cannot reproduce the text, however the document may be viewed under the following link. Click the link (page open in a new window) and then click on the document.

http://www.londoncouncils.gov.uk/committees/agenda.htm?pk_agenda_items=3999

So it looks like the Borough pins will be with us soon. Maybe we'll get to see what they look like before long.

It was a similar document on the same website that, last year, gave the first information about the London Landmarks vote.

25/2: Team GB Vancouver Pin

Whilst not strictly a London 2012 Pin, I thought it worth a quick note about the 'Snowflake' pin worn by our GB athletes and officials in the Vancouver Opening Ceremony.

It appears that although it's a Team GB pin, it's a LOCOG pin.

The markings on the back of the pin are

(R) (C) LOCOG 2010

Team GB

TGB0001

Honav

These are standard LOCOG/Honav markings and seem to introduce another number series - TGB. Hopefully we can look forward to more of these in the run up to 2012.

16/2: New Bridge Pins are from Honav

It's official, the 2 new bridge pins shown in yesterday's blog post are from Honav. It looks like they are retail pins. I'm hoping to get images of the pin backs to confirm the details, but if they are for retail, then we should expect to see them for sale in the usual places soon.

Maybe they'll be released on or around the Vancouver closing ceremony?

15/2: More Bridge Pin News

Following on from the previous bridge pin news from Vancouver, it looks like another 2 pins have surfaced.

Here's the original produced by VANOC

Here are 2 more that have appeared on eBay.

(Images reproduced with permission)

No word yet on where the two newer pins come from, I'm still chasing information on those but maybe they're from LOCOG. The first one of the two with the pink logo definitely looks like a LOCOG pin given the angular shape of the white block and the cut-outs in the logo.

More news when I have it.

10/2: Official Vancouver/London Bridge Pin

After a couple of suspect Vancouver/London pins appearing on eBay which, in my opinion, were completely unofficial, it looks like we finally have the real thing a couple of days before the Winter Games open.

It's an attractive pin with the Canadian Flag and Vancouver 2012 Logo and also the Union Flag and London 2012 Logo in blue.

The following image has been taken from http://www.artissaminco.ca/docs/Pin_List.pdf

I'll be adding it into the inventory as soon as mine arrive from Canada.

27/1: Police Pin Update

I've found out that the police/London 2012 pin on eBay is NOT issued by the police in connection with the Olympics.

Apparently it was issued some time ago internally to support a charity and has absolutely no connection with London 2012. The letters in the rings represent traffic garages in London. I've therefore removed it from the listings and added it to the unofficial page so that future readers will know a little more about it. I think it's an interesting curiosity, but not part of the catalogue.

25/1: Regional Pins

Just a quick update this evening. Thanks to a response from one of the regional committees and an email from a reader, I can confirm that there are no regional pins being made for the London region (REG0003) and the West Midlands region (REG0011).

I'll leave them in the catalogue for completeness, but update the comments this week.

Better news is that it looks like the 33 London Borough pins may be out in March according to an unconfirmed comment from the London Development Agency. Remember this is not yet confirmed by LOCOG, so we'll have to see.

18/1: eBay Round-Up

Seems like most of the interesting pin activity is happening on eBay at the moment so here's a quick round up.

An Adecco pin (ADE0001) went over the weekend for £51. I think this is the top price paid so far for one of these pins and (someone please let me know if I'm wrong) I think the top price paid so far for a sponsor pin?

The Metropolitan Police Olympic Rings pin that went at New Year possibly came from the traffic division. I'm on the trail of more information to confirm this and will report back if I can. I'm holding back adding this one to the inventory until I get more details.

Finally a new Visa Europe pin has appeared - VSA0009. A rectangular gold pin with the 2012 logo and Visa Worldwide Partner. Again I'm trying to find out more details. I'll add this one to the inventory as it appears genuine.

If you have any news you think should be shared, please drop me a line.

16/1: Different Type of Sponsor Pin

Thanks to a regular reader and also to a fellow collector in Canada, here's news of a new sponsor pin seen recently.

This one is slightly different in that it hasn't been made by Honav under licence from LOCOG.

The back of the pin is marked

36 USC 220506

AMINCO

China

showing that it's been made by the Vancouver 2010 pin manufacturers.

I presume that as Visa are a worldwide Olympic partner rather than specific to London 2012, they have access to all Games logos and can choose who manufacturers the pin. I guess this one is not commissioned by Visa Europe like the previous ones. I suspect we'll see more of these types of sponsor pins from the Worldwide/Tier 1 partners.

I'm now debating whether this starts a new section of the inventory - I think it does, and I'll start a numbering convention, any ideas?

I'm trying to track down some information on who can use the Olympic Rings, 2012 logo and 'London 2012' on their pins, so will report back if I can.

12/1: Mini News Update

A few snippets of information in what appears to be a quiet pin time at the moment...

Those of you hoping for a 900 Days To Go pin on the 8th February may be disappointed. It looks like there are no plans to issue such a pin. We may have to wait for 750 or 500 days.

Still no date on the re-issue of the London at Night set, but there are prototypes of the new packaging being assessed, so hopefully not much longer.
No news on the London Landmarks set either.

I'm trying to find out if we can expect any new designs in the next month or so. We've had nothing (retail) for a while, so here's hoping there's something soon.

Rumours of a BMW partner pin, possibly in the first quarter of 2010.

Not a lot for now I'm afraid.

22/12: Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

I would like to say 'Thank You' to all the people who have read and contributed to the website and blog this year. I never thought that when I started this back in the spring that I would reached as many people as I have. In the last couple of weeks the website has been read by over 270 different people in 25 countries across 4 continents, it may not sound much to you, but I'm amazed! I don't have any statistics earlier than December otherwise I'm sure I'd have rivalled the BBC or Amazon websites!

So thank you, please keep writing with information when you have it and share your news with the community.

I hope you have a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Paul.

22/12: New Internal Pins

LOCOG have issued 3 new internal pins recently.

The first 2 are, I understand, gifts for their staff as a seasonal 'thank you'. They are both silver and show the logo on one pin and the Paralympic logo on the other. Both pins are slightly smaller than the normal logo pins.

The third new pin is the 'Inspire Mark' which will probably be given to certain members of those organisations who qualify for the Inspire Mark.

1/12: News Update

I was lucky enough to speak to Honav UK today so can give you an update on what's been happening.

Firstly some sponsor pin activity.

• New pins are now out for UPS, British Airways, Cadbury and Scottish Widows.
• There are some sponsor Paralympic 1000 DTG pins coming out on Thursday.
• Both Tier 2 and Tier 3 partners are planning further pins at the moment (I think, though, that we won't see anything until next year (my opinion)

I have pictures and details of all the new pins (9 in all) so will get the inventory updated this week (probably after the Paralympic 1000DTG mark on 3 December).

Now for the LOCOG pins.

• No date yet on the new packaging for the London at Night set
• No date for the amended pictograms
• The 33 London Boroughs (or London Landmarks) set are in design at the moment

Lastly, the ODA have run a pin design competition internally to create a design to support their environmental and sustainability work. The judging is taking place at the moment, so expect another internal pin next year to go with the builder's hats.

Don't forget that the final 1000DTG pin comes out on Thursday to mark the countdown to the Paralympic Games. The Museum of London will be stocking it and Runner's Need will not. I'm not sure about Crest or Hux777. Please mention the London2012Pins.com website when speaking to retailers, it helps to spread the word - thank you.

So, check out the inventory later in the week or over the weekend - it depends how much time I get to upload the new details!

Thank you to Honav UK and the Museum of London for providing information.

22/11: New Partner & Internal Pins

It's been a bit quiet on the news front lately, but here's an update for the partner and internal inventories.

A new BA 1000 Days To Go pin has been found as well as 3 more of the regional internal pins. Thanks to readers for sharing the information.

Also, on the pin forum, one reader has told us about an Adidas 1000 Days To Go pin, but for now I'm holding off adding it to the inventory until I can get a photo or some more details to verify it's existance.

4/11: Pictograms & Retailer Round-Up

A quick summary of the pictogram pin situation and retailer position.

There will be 38 Olympic pictogram pins and 21 Paralympic pictogram pins available individually. No mention of any sets yet, but I'm sure they'll be here eventually.

There seems to be an issue over the track cycling and mountain bike pins and these two will be delayed for a while due to manufacturing issues.

The RRP for each pin is £5.00 and the editions sizes are 5,000 for the Olympic pins and 3,000 for the Paralympic pins. So for a whole set you're looking at just shy of £300!

As for the retailers, this is the situation... (in alphabetical order - no favourites!)

Hux777 - is selling the Olympic pins now and plans to have the Paralympic pins

Museum of London - is taking pre-orders for 17 of the Paralympic pins but the website will be continued to be updated with the rest and they hope to have stock in the shop for all pins (apart from the 2 mentioned above) by next Monday.

Runners Need - is only stocking the track athletics pin in their shops. [Edit 6/11: Runners Need will not be supplying any individual pins other than the athletics pin, although will probably stock sets if they are created]

Thank you to all of the retailers above who have been good enough to share details with me over the last 2 days so that I could clarify what's available.

The inventory has been updated with details - no pictures until I get my pins!

1/11: News Round Up

The blog's been a bit quiet for the last week as I was spending the time getting the website refreshed. I've given it a new theme and improved the menu. Hopefully you'll find it easier to find pins in the inventory as I've split it down by number and category. There's a new article on fake pins and the download section now has the inventory available for download as a PDF.

On the news front...

You will probably have seen that the London at Night set has been withdrawn from sale and is to be re-issued in new packaging. No word on timescales, but I would think we'll see something in a few weeks.

The 1000 day pins came out yesterday, and don't forget they'll be a Paralympic 1000 day pin out on 3 December to complete the set.

I think the pictogram pins are not too far away, lets hope they come as a complete set like the Beijing ones did. The Museum of London website is showing them as coming soon and I think that Runners Need will be stocking them too. I hope to have more news this week.