Buyer Beware

We are now less than two weeks from the start of the Olympic Winter Games in Sochi, Russia. Teams from 88 countries have been selected and are beginning to make their way toward this resort on the Black Sea.

Most teams have received or are about to receive their Sochi pins, and these are starting to find their way into circulation. However, this is also when the fraudsters start putting their pins into circulation as well. For a NOC pin collector, this is a dangerous time. Little to nothing is known about the authenticity of the pins that are becoming available and it is the natural tendency of collectors to grab first and wonder about authenticity second. This is exactly what the producers of unauthorized NOC pins want you to do.

This is also a difficult time for our committee. The NOCs are at their absolute busiest in their preparations for the Sochi Olympics. Many committee members are already moving into the two Olympic Villages in preparation for the arrival of their teams. So it is nearly impossible to get feedback on the authenticity of the pins that are appearing unless members of our committee received pins directly from the NOC. Here is an example. Last week, this pin began to appear on eBay:

CAN_2014_14

While this is not an indictment, the seller of this pin has been known to sell pins that later turned out to be unauthorized. Strike one. In addition, we have received three different dated Sochi Olympic pins directly from the Canadian Olympic Committee and this was not one of them. Strike two. We also know that this pin is based on authentic COC design from the mid-1990s. It is common for fraudsters to use old pin designs as a base because it is easier to copy a design than to design a new pin. Unfortunately, repeated emails to the COC asking whether they have authorized this pin have gone unanswered. As a result, the rating on this pin is still “Not yet rated”. This is extremely frustrating to us. However, we started this project with the goal of producing ratings that were not based on hearsay, but that were as objective as possible. So, “Not yet rated” this pin will stay, at least until we receive additional feedback.

So what is a collector to do? Thanks to the NOCs that have responded to us directly and through the help of NOC pin producer Kingdom Pins (note: Committee member Daniel Beniston is Managing Director of Kingdom Pins), our website now has images of more than 20 authentic Sochi-dated NOC pins and that number increases to more than 50 if the retail pins from the United States, Canada and Japan are included. More are being added nearly every day. Our advice is to go after the authenticated NOC pins first and treat all not rated pins as if they may be unauthorized. We will continue to work on obtaining feedback for all pins without ratings so check back often. And if you happen to see a pin that is not yet listed, by all means send the image to: Illegal_Pin_Comm@comcast.net and we will begin the authentication process.

Until next time, stay tuned.

Steve

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