Ron Finnigan shows his pin collection as he waits to swap with athletes and fans on July 27 in Paris.Siegfried Modola/The Globe and Mail
Ron Finnigan’s cellphone is pinging every few seconds with intel from others who are already at the Olympic village.
“The pins are flowing,” a friend messages. Mr. Finnigan meets up with another friend and they head over shortly after lunch, staking out a spot just south of the entrance. He displays his many offerings – vintage pins from previous Games, as well as some new ones he brought from home – on a red fleece scarf draped around his neck.
Soon after he arrives, a young woman wearing Canada’s trademark red rain jacket and hat walks past him.
“Canada? Do you have any pins to trade?” Mr. Finnigan asks, hoping she’s an athlete.
“I just have the judo pin,” the woman replies. They make a swap.
Mr. Finnigan swaps pins with athletes and fans on July 27, during the first day of the Olympic Games in the French capital.Siegfried Modola/The Globe and Mail
Turns out that woman is Christa Deguchi. Two days later, she would go on to win Canada’s first gold medal of the 2024 Paris Olympics.
These are the moments that drive pin collectors, said Mr. Finnigan. “It’s like finding a needle in a haystack.”
At every Olympic Games, there are two competitions under way: the one that happens between the athletes inside the stadiums, and the one on the sidewalk out front, where sometimes dozens of collectors can be found looking for trades.
Initially, pin-trading was an activity that only happened between athletes, but by the 1980s, it expanded to a hobby for the masses. Today, countries, Olympic committees, media outlets, commercial brands, individual sports’ bodies and sometimes even athletes make their own.
Even before the opening ceremony, huddles of collectors can be found outside every venue, the media centre and even hotels where different delegations are believed to be staying. Olympic volunteers and staff and, of course, athletes, take part. And on a recent visit to the Olympic village, even a couple police officers were getting in on the game.
Mr. Finnigan, a 62-year-old engineer who lives in Burlington, Ont., has always been an Olympics fanatic. As a kid, he remembers being glued to the television to watch the Games in Munich and then Montreal. At 22, when Los Angeles was hosting, Mr. Finnigan decided to go by himself as a spectator. He watched 10 events in 12 days. It was during this trip that he noticed a bunch of people trading pins around the stadiums. He got a hold of some of his own and started trading as well. He was hooked.
The fun, he says, is hunting for specific designs, rare items or pins from high-profile athletes. Mr. Finnigan likes to collect wares from the Caribbean nations, which he says often have some of the best designs.
On a good day, he can make 50 trades. A 100-trade day is considered exceptional. Mr. Finnigan only stays for about a week. He brings around 700 pins from home. This year, he brought a red shield with a Maple Leaf, a pin with a First Nations headdress, and a polar bear.
Japanese-born Canadian judoka champion Christa Deguchi, centre, poses for photographs with Olympic pin collector Ron Finnigan, second from right, Ron’s daughter Anna Finnigan, right, and Ron’s son Kieran Finnigan, left, on July 27, in Paris.Siegfried Modola/The Globe and Mail
“Anything that’s Canadian is popular,” he said.
All together, Mr. Finnigan estimates he has more than 10,000 pins in his collection, although he said he hasn’t properly counted them in about 20 years.
Paris is the 13th Olympic Games that he’s been to.
It’s also the first that his wife, Marjorie Prentice – also an engineer – has attended.
“I find it an odd hobby,” she chuckled. “I guess I must admit I get tired of the pins all over our house.”
Ms. Prentice isn’t thrilled about the six filing cabinets in her basement that are teeming with categorized, foam-mounted, boards of pins. Or the mess she knows is going to erupt in her living room when the Olympics is over, as her husband begins to sort through his latest haul.
But it makes him happy, she admits.
“And he’s made a lot of really good friends over the years,” she said, adding that some incredible things have happened to him because of pinning.
For example, at the 1992 Games in Barcelona, a local woman approached Mr. Finnigan outside a venue and pointed to one of his Canada pins. The woman didn’t have anything to trade, but Mr. Finnigan gave her a flag pin anyway. About an hour later, she returned and handed him a piece of paper.
“It was a ticket to the men’s gold medal soccer final,” Mr. Finnigan said. “She didn’t speak a word of English. I have absolutely no idea where she got the ticket from. Just the pin that I’d given her had meant that much to her.”
That’s the power of pinning.