A number of trading pins are awarded for a variety of reasons in different sports. For example, in football and baseball athletes and teams sometimes can win trading pins for winning championships and tournaments. In soccer and hockey, certain pins are awarded for winning regional competitions and national events that lead to international competitions like the World Cup. By understanding how some of these pins are awarded, collectors are able to determine the overall collectible value of certain pins as they build their collections of sports trading pins.
Awarding of Sports Trading Pins in High School Sports
In high school sports, trading pins and other awards are awarded for a variety of reasons. Most often trading pins are awarded as a means of enhancing a sports team’s spirit of teamwork and are given to athletes at the end of a season as a way to reward players for participating in as many games as possible during the season. Some customized pins may be awarded to athletes who are on teams that win at county, district, regional, and state competitions. These pins are usually very colorful and are of great value to collectors of localized sports memorabilia. All in all, the criteria for the awarding of high school sports trading pins is often up to the discretion of a team’s coach and the athletic director of the high school program.
Awarding of Sports Trading Pins in Collegiate Sports Programs
Collegiate sports trading pins are some of the most sought after pins by athletes and collectors. These pins are usually awarded in a similar fashion to the way that high school pins are awarded with the exception that college-level pins are awarded on a more stringent basis. College-level sports pins are only awarded to the best performing players, whereas high school sports trading pins are usually awarded to all of the team’s players. That said, there are a few exceptions to this rule in the case of trading pins that are awarded for bowl games in football and the College World Series in baseball. In these events, just about every player on the team receives a trading pin commemorating the event. On the whole though, college-level sports trading pins are considered quite a bit more valuable by athletes and collectors.
To get a specific idea of how college-level sports trading pins are awarded, it is a good idea to look at a few of the most common trading pins awarded in collegiate baseball. One pin that is usually awarded to the pitching staff is a trading pin awarded for the pitcher to pitch the most number of games over the course of the season. Another trading pin that is highly coveted is the pin given to the player who hits the most home-runs over the season. Finally, a trading pin made from gold or silver is often given to the player who has been determined by the baseball team’s coaching staff to be the most valuable player by getting the largest number of opposing players out over the course of the season. As can be seen, college-level sports trading pins are usually only given to those players who have proven their value to the overall success of the team. This is one of the many reasons why these pins are highly sought after by collectors.
Awarding of Olympic and Professional Sports Trading Pins
An interesting fact about the awarding of Olympic and professional sports trading pins is that these pins were designed originally as a way to identify team members wherever they went when they were not participating in Olympic and professional sporting events. After World War II, companies started putting together a variety of sports trading pin designs in order to market sports memorabilia to professional and Olympic sports fans. As a result of this marketing push, fans began to receive more and more sports trading pins for professional and Olympic sporting events. This fact led to the development of the hobby of collecting sports trading pins. ‘
Today, sports trading pins are awarded to professional and Olympic athletes for many of the same reasons that they are awarded to athletes that participate in sports at a lower level. One will often find companies offering athletes and their fans professional and Olympic sports trading pins to mark a certain tournament like the Super Bowl or a historic Olympic event like the 2008 Olympics that were held in Beijing. All in all, Olympic and professional sports trading pins are some of the most commonly traded sports pins available to collectors.
The value of professional and Olympic trading pins is determined usually by a collector’s desire to own a professional team’s particular pin or to have a pin that memorializes a specific historical event. On the whole, these pins range widely in value making them a challenge for collectors who may consider their collection of sports trading pins to be an investment. Therefore, it can be a good idea to use a collector’s buying guide when purchasing any type of sports trading pin that you may be unfamiliar with.
Now that you have a better idea of how sports trading pins are awarded, you will be able to more easily determine the value of the pins that you are looking to collect. All in all, the hobby of collecting sports trading pins is an exciting and fascinating look at the wide world of sports.
