Law Enforcement

Police and sheriff pins were the heart of the pin-trading scene at the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics. Months before opening day, officers working the Games planning meetings began trading pins with each other, and nearly every department made its own. Los Angeles Police Department, Long Beach Police, Beverly Hills Police, the Los Angeles County Sheriff and the California Highway Patrol all issued designs. That is why law enforcement is the largest group of government pins in the 1985 Pin Collector's Guide: pins G1 through G124.

How it started: the torch pin

The first government pin is believed to be the Los Angeles Police Department's Olympic Games Planning Group torch pin. Collectors snapped them up so quickly that LAPD kept producing new torch pins right up to opening day. The series has several versions, including one with no date, one with a small hole in the "O," one with a red 1984 and one with a blue 1984, and the guide estimates the red 1984 version at about 6,000 made. Long Beach followed with its own torch pins from the Olympic Games Planning Office, in red and black number versions.