Translations:AY Honors/Pin Trading/Answer Key/31/en

Origins of Pin Trading

Pin trading had its origins at the Olympics. As early as the first modern Olympic Games in 1896, athletes and officials wore special badges so they could be visually recognized as representing a specific country. In 1906 Sweden was the first country to use their national colors on the badges. The other countries soon followed, and it became the standard way of doing things. Then the athletes began wearing pins featuring their national colors, and soon after that athletes from different countries began exchanging pins with each other as a symbol of unity. As time went by, they became the trading pins that we are familiar with seeing today. The first time spectators were allowed to collect and trade pins at the Olympics was in 1980. Pin trading quickly became very popular, and today it is considered “the number one spectator sport of the Olympic Games.” Collecting and trading pins has spread and become a popular activity and hobby in many venues other than the Olympics. However, pin trading as a hobby owes its existence to the original badges used in the first Olympic Games, as well as the changes that followed it. Without that we wouldn’t have pin trading as we know it today.