By Caryn Smith © 2010, All Rights Reserved
It’s that time of year again, when the air turns warmer and Saturday afternoons are filled with the ringing sound of a baseball bat striking a ball. It’s Little League season, and that means revisiting those great traditions that make the game so memorable to all the boys and girls who participate, such as trading baseball pins.
Baseball Pin Primer
Trading pins were popularized by Disney in 1999 at the Millennium Celebration, and the craze spread rapidly throughout the world. The youth sports industry quickly embraced the notion, and interest has grown ever since. Today, pins are traded at sporting events around the globe, and your Little League team is probably anxious to get in on the action.
Teams typically order pins at the start of every season. When they make it to the play-offs, every level they complete is commemorated with a new trading pin. At the end of the season, the champion team produces a final pin to celebrate their victory. These colorful pins are a great way to foster team spirit and anchor the happy memories of summers spent on the ball diamond. Some players might even tell you trading lapel pins is just as much fun as the game itself.
Making Your Pins More Desirable
Everyone wants to associate with winners, so it makes sense that the best teams have the most desirable pins. The greater your team’s success, the higher the value of your pins. It’s not unusual for the league champion’s pins to command a trade “price” of two or three pins belonging to lower ranking teams.
Aside from winning a tournament, teams can make their pins more valuable by using interesting design elements. Each custom pin tells a story about your team, whether it’s where you’re from or the competitions you’ve won. Pins can have danglers shaped like baseball bats or your team’s home state, bobble heads, glow-in-the-dark paint, glitter, and even flashing lights. The more unusual your trading pins, the more admired they become.
Size also matters, with larger pins having a greater value for collectors. The trade-off, of course, is weight. Make your pins too large and they may end up too heavy to lay correctly when pinned to a uniform or backpack. Design unique and visually interesting pins and they’ll be highly sought after and prized not only among your team, but by other team’s players as well.
Benefits of Baseball Trading Pins
The true benefit of baseball trading pins is not in their real or perceived value, but in the friendships and lasting memories they help create. They serve as great ice-breakers among groups of kids and they encourage children to forge friendships with those who are not their teammates. These friendships can last years, and may never have happened without the help of a small metal pin. Trading pins are also a wonderful, physical reminder of special events and fantastic summers. Each trading pin collected is another memory preserved.
Caryn Smith is Manager of Signature Pins. Visit https://signaturepins.com/ today for custom baseball trading pins in just 10 days, guaranteed!