In the summer of 1984, Los Angeles hosted the Games of the XXIIIrd Olympiad. Athletes competed for medals — and the public joined what collectors called the "24th event": pin collecting.
People wanted something they could take home from a season when American pride and the Olympic Torch burned side by side. That boom is why so many of the pins in our Olympic Pins collection still turn up with the same numbers collectors used in 1984–85.
1984 Opening Ceremonies pin — Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
1984 Closing Ceremonies pin — Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
How the hobby took off
Pin collecting in the United States had gained a foothold at the Lake Placid Winter Games in 1980. By the spring of 1984 it was a real hobby among sports memorabilia fans — and among the thousands of corporate, committee, and venue workers tied to the Southern California Olympic effort. Many of those groups — media crews, police units, and company departments — had their own pins made just to trade.
When athletes and international visitors arrived with pins from around the world, trading spilled across the venues. Foreign visitors often preferred licensed "official" designs; Coca-Cola, McDonald's, and ABC were the sponsor names they already knew. The pin in highest demand early on was Sam the Eagle holding a Coca-Cola bottle ("Have a Coke and a smile"). Coca-Cola did not authorize that design; production was pulled, and the few originals that remained became extremely valuable.
Pinheads 1984 USA pin — a trader from the hobby crowd
Spotlight: Sam with the Coke bottle
Olympic pin collectors know this design as one of the hottest 1984 pins — Sam holding a Coke bottle with the bubble "Have a Coke and a smile." The design was not authorized by Coca-Cola and was pulled from the market. Only a few hundred originals circulated.
In August 1985, the Los Angeles Times reported that about 400 genuine examples were known and that they were selling for about $1,200 each (counterfeits of the same look sold for as little as $1). Adjusted for inflation, that 1985 price is about $3,700 in 2026 dollars. Cheap listings you see online today for about $10–$12 are almost always later copies or different Coke/Sam designs — not the scarce pulled original.
Sam the Eagle Coca-Cola pin — Los Angeles 1984 Olympics (a licensed Coke design, not the pulled bottle pin)
The Budweiser Six-Pack
Anheuser-Busch gave pin collecting its first big public stage: a giant inflatable Budweiser Six-Pack trading center at 39th and Figueroa. Midway through the Games, the line stretched about an hour long and roughly 10,000 people a day visited. New collectors bought a 1984 Pin Collector's Guide, some pins, and walked into Exposition Park to trade.
After Closing Ceremonies the Six-Pack came down — but traders kept returning to that corner for weeks. What looked like too much inventory before the Games was gone; production restarted in September instead of a clearance sale.
Welcome LA ’84 pin — a trading favorite
Why so many different department pins
Organizations did not issue one pin for the whole company. Divisions and departments — ABC Sports Media versus Engineering Maintenance, LAPD Expo Park Task Force versus other police units, FBI, Secret Service, Interpol, SWAT — each commissioned their own designs to hand out and trade. That is why law-enforcement and media pins come in so many near-lookalike varieties: each group wanted a unique trader.
Media and agency pins were especially prized because they were not sold over the counter like many sponsor pins. At the Budweiser Six-Pack tent and along Figueroa, officers traded with collectors and with each other. A 1997 Los Angeles Times look-back recalled FBI pins (about 150 made) trading around $200, with Interpol and SWAT designs equally hot — and at least one Secret Service agent declining a trade. Welcome LA ’84 was another favorite, recalled near $150 at the peak of the frenzy.
When you see a pin titled for a department (Engineering Maintenance, Expo Park Task Force, and so on), that name is usually on the pin — the group that ordered it for trading, not a product line from the parent brand alone.
LAPD Expo Park Task Force 1984 pin — Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum
abc Engineering Maintenance — a department trader pin.
After the Games
Independent promoters launched large weekly pin meets in Los Angeles. Neighborhood trades appeared in the suburbs. The Los Angeles Times classifieds sometimes ran up to three columns of pin ads each Sunday.
The 1984 and 1985 Pin Collector's Guides — from John's own collection
The 1985 Pin Collector's Guide (Long Hills Inc.) expanded the 1984 book with new designs and updated production figures. It was written for collectors — not as an official Olympic committee publication.
How Pinpal uses the guide
Nearly all of our Olympic pins appear in this guide. On each listing we plan to show the Guide # and the Guide page, so a collector from 1984 and a buyer preparing for Los Angeles 2028 can speak the same language.
Closing
Pin trading at LA '84 never really ended — it just went quieter until the next Olympic wave. We're bringing those same pins forward for collectors who still feel that fever, and for everyone getting ready for Los Angeles 2028.
History adapted from the 1985 Pin Collector's Guide, Long Hills Inc., and contemporary reporting. Pinpal is not affiliated with the LAOOC, USOC, Coca-Cola, or Long Hills Inc.
More from the guide: Pin Guide: Government Pins (G1 to G144).