They are small pieces of metal with intricate, colourful designs on them, and every four years they spark a fever among Olympic athletes, fans, workers and collectors. They are the pins produced for each edition of the Games, and Rio 2016 is ready to make its contribution to the tradition.

It is expected that about 800 types of pins will be developed in relation to the first edition of the Olympic and Paralympic Games to be staged in South America, resulting in around three million units. Many of them are already on sale in the official Rio 2016 shops, while many more will be traded around the city during the Games.

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Pins arose as a way to identify athletes and are now part of Games culture, not to mention official licensing programmes. Tens of millions of them are sold at each edition, while the tradition of swapping and gifting pins creates personal connections between people of different origins, in line with the Olympic and Paralympic values.

Luiz Carlos and Cida Correa, from the mountain town of Nova Friburgo in Rio de Janeiro state, started to collect pins in 2004 and now have one of the largest collections in Brazil, totalling more than 13,000. The couple have a website which they use to swap pins with hundreds of collectors from across the world. “We obtained about 95 per cent of our pins through swaps or purchases involving collectors in Europe,” said Carlos. “Here in Brazil, sometimes you find something at antique fairs, second-hand shops and trinket stores.”

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The collectors’ market in Brazil is still small, but the Rio 2016 Games will help to boost it. “You can pay between R$ 3 (US$ 0.79) and R$50 (US$ 13) for a pin,” said Carlos. “There are silver, gold-plated and limited-edition models. Given the prices quoted on sales websites, our collection is now worth around R$ 50,000. (US$ 13,000)”

Rio 2016 has produced a pin for each of the 65 Olympic and Paralympic sports disciplines (Photo: Rio 2016/Alex Ferro)

Know your pins...

• The oldest-known Olympic pins were made of cardboard and used to identify athletes, officials and journalists at the Athens 1896 Games
• The first metal pins were created for Paris 1900, where they were used exclusively by judges
• At London 1908 metal pins were given to members of the International Olympic Committee (IOC) for the first time
• The first licence to produce and sell Olympic pins was granted for Stockholm 1912, with proceeds going to charity
• At Paris 1924 athletes, employees and collectors started to swap pins as a symbol of international friendship
• The first Olympic sponsor pin was made for Los Angeles 1928
• Pin swapping became a craze at the Lake Placid 1980 Olympic Winter Games, where the fashion was for fans to wear pins on their hats
• Around 1,300 different models were created for Los Angeles 1984, when 17 million units were sold
• Los Angeles 1984 also saw the first pin swapping centre, attracting 10,000 people per day
• In 1988, the IOC officially recognised pins as Olympic Games souvenirs
• Coca-Cola created its first Pin Trade Center at the Calgary 1988 Winter Games, attracting around 17,000 visitors per day, with a total of seven million pins sold
• At Barcelona 1992, more than 500,000 people visited Coca-Cola’s Pin Trade Center, swapping over two million pins
• At Atlanta 96, the centennial Olympic Games, 63 million pins were sold and 30 million were swapped
• At Sydney 2000, 3,500 different models were made, and sales amounted to US$ 65 million
• Rare or exclusive models can be worth 10 or more regular pins
• The rarest pins are special editions produced by National Olympic Committees, which can cost US$ 2,000 or more