1992 USA Olympic Team Sponsor Pin ~ Louis Rich ~ Boxing ~ Oscar Mayer

An Olympic sponsor pin from Louis Rich, the turkey brand of Oscar Mayer, issued when the company was a U.S. Olympic Committee sponsor. A dark brown enamel panel in a gold frame carries "USA" above the Olympic rings, with two boxers squaring off mid-exchange in gold, 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 Boxing design: Two boxers trade punches at close range, gloves up, in the middle of an exchange. Boxing first came to the Olympics at the 1904 St. Louis Games and has been on the program of every Summer Games since 1920.

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.

• 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: Boxing
• Design: "USA" and the Olympic rings above two gold boxers sparring, "LOUIS RICH" on the bottom bar
• Style: Dark brown 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.