1992 USA Olympic Team Sponsor Pin ~ Louis Rich ~ Alpine Skiing ~ Oscar Mayer

A 1992 U.S. Olympic Team sponsor pin from Louis Rich, the turkey brand of Oscar Mayer, from the winter sports half of the series. A green enamel panel in a gold frame carries "USA" above the Olympic rings in gold, with a gold alpine skier leaning hard into a turn, pole in hand, and "LOUIS RICH" on a tan bar along the bottom. Gold tone metal, rectangular, with a single post and butterfly clutch.

About Louis Rich and Oscar Mayer: Louis Rich began as a family poultry business. In 1943 Louis H. Rich bought a former tomato-canning plant in West Liberty, Iowa, to expand his Rock Island Produce Company. His sons Norman and Martin converted it to poultry processing in 1946 and, by 1949, were processing turkeys only. In 1979 Oscar Mayer bought Louis Rich, Inc., and Louis Rich became the turkey side of the famous meat company that Oscar F. Mayer and his brother Gottfried founded in Chicago in 1883. Oscar Mayer was bought by General Foods in 1981; General Foods was bought by Philip Morris in 1985, which added Kraft in 1988 and merged the two into Kraft General Foods in 1989 (renamed Kraft Foods in 1995). Louis Rich ran the West Liberty plant until 1996, when Kraft planned to close it and 47 Iowa turkey growers formed a cooperative, West Liberty Foods, to buy it and keep it running.

An Olympic sponsor: Oscar Mayer Foods and its Louis Rich turkey company were sponsors of the U.S. Olympic Committee in the run-up to the 1992 Games, and Oscar Mayer also issued pins marked "Official Sponsor 1992 U.S. Olympic Team." The Oscar Mayer family of brands shared one matching series of USA Olympic sport pins, covering both summer and winter sports, each with an athlete on an enamel panel and a brand name on the bottom bar: Oscar Mayer, Louis Rich, Claussen, Lunch Combinations or Louis Kemp. This pin is part of the Oscar Mayer family USA Olympic sport series made for the 1992 U.S. Olympic Team.

The Alpine Skiing design: The skier is laid over in a carved turn, hip close to the snow and one pole out, the way racers take the gates in giant slalom. Alpine skiing came to the Olympics at Garmisch-Partenkirchen in 1936, when the only race was a combined downhill and slalom, held for both men and women. Separate downhill and slalom races followed in 1948, the giant slalom in 1952 and the super-G in 1988. At the 1992 Winter Games in Albertville, France, Alberto Tomba of Italy won the men's giant slalom and Kjetil André Aamodt of Norway the men's super-G, while Americans Hilary Lindh took silver in the women's downhill and Diann Roffe shared silver in the women's giant slalom.

The "36 USC 380" stamp: The back is stamped "36 USC 380," the section of the U.S. Code created by the Amateur Sports Act of 1978. It gave the U.S. Olympic Committee the exclusive right in the United States to the Olympic rings and the word "Olympic," so a company needed the USOC's permission to use them on merchandise. The stamp turns up on the backs of many licensed U.S. Olympic sponsor pins from the 1980s and 1990s. In 1998 the law was renumbered as 36 U.S.C. 220506, so the old "380" stamp is a sign of a pin made before then.

• Year: 1992 U.S. Olympic Team
• Sponsor: Louis Rich (Oscar Mayer), U.S. Olympic Committee sponsor
• Series: Oscar Mayer family USA Olympic sport series, summer and winter sports (Oscar Mayer, Louis Rich, Claussen, Lunch Combinations, Louis Kemp)
• Sport: Alpine Skiing (Winter)
• Design: "USA" and the Olympic rings above a gold alpine skier carving a turn with pole, "LOUIS RICH" on the bottom bar
• Style: Green enamel panel, gold tone frame, rectangle
• Size: approx. 5/8" x 1"
• Back: Gold tone, stamped "36 USC 380," single post with butterfly clutch

Packaging: All orders shipped in corrugated box for extra protection, we don't use bubble mailers.

Shipping: U.S. shipping is $4.95 flat per order, and free on orders of $35 or more.