the tall blond guy goes to japan

Pinheads!

Nagano City

Pins: Small metallic objects displaying corporate and olympic logos, with a small pin and clasp, which people use to affix said objects to their clothes.

I've seen pins in this city which cost more than my new Discman. There are pins for sale at prices above Y20,000 (that's about cdn $220, folks). These are pins. Little tiny things. There's something about supply and demand that just drives people insane.

There are pin-trading/pin-selling outfits everywhere. Still even now, a week after the Games are over! Pins are displayed poked into cloth-covered styrofoam that's been attached to plywood boards. Some smaller dealers have thieir entire operations in a suitcase. There are some in the main plaza outside the JR station, some up by the temple, but the majority of the stands are on the other side of the JR station, in a place called the "Olympic Plaza".

Pin value varies widely between these locations, even between booths. I've seen my Canadian Ice Hockey team pins going for Y1000 in one place, and Y3000 in another. I was able to do a straight-across trade for a pin in one place that was selling for Y10,000 in another. Generally though, pins with the Snowlet mascots are the most expensive, followed by the Nagano logo, and the Olympic rings. Pins with no sponsors mentioned are generally more expensive than ones with sponsors. However, some rare sponsor pins are even more expensive. Certain sponsors are more expensive than others. A Coca-Cola pin beats a UPS pin, while IBM pins (which seem to be by far the most numerous) seem to be in a class all their own, some being very expensive, and some being very cheap. But above all, many of the prices (especially when you get into dealing and haggling and trades) are set at the whims of the pinheads themselves.

I think I made some pretty good deals.

My pin collection

The two IBM Snowlet pins on the left (Noki and Tzuki, I think), selling for Y3000 in one place, were even trades for two of my Canadian Hockey pins. As an aside, another place, across town, wouldn't even take my Hockey pins as trades, because he already has about 30 of them. He did, however, tell me that "they're good pins, easy to trade". Yes indeedy!

The round Snowlets pin at the middle top was quite a steal. The guy I traded with was a Canadophile, and he really wanted a Canada Hockey pin. He apparently didn't know that they were going for Y1000 directly behind him. Anyway, after I threw in a Canadian Hockey pin, he sold me this one for Y2000 - another booth had told me that he didn't even want to quote me a price on this pin, as it would be "more than Y10,000". I'm thinking good money could be made just walking around between booths.

Similar stories on the other IBM pin and the plain-but-oh-so-classy looking "Nagano 1998" pin (my favourite). The gold one was another even trade, and I think I may have got ripped off on that one, since I saw them being blown out by the dozens at Y500 a few stands down.

For about an hour there, I knew what it was like to be a pinhead.