Pinback Mystery Solved!

[ooo-ribay]

Originally Posted by SirGabel

sweet read- I would love to see pictures on these jackie buttons. Think you can get every letters and put it together?

Paul's pic:

[JayZim13]

Paul,

You always do great detective work. I love the story and the facts you have to back it up. Because you see so few Brooklyn Eagle Jackie pins (regardless of the lettering) I would think the newspaper did not distribute as many pins as they would have you believe.

Great to see the blog again.

Jay Zimmerman

[springpin]

Rob and Jay,

Rob, thanks for retrieving the image of the pin from a previous thread/post/column (whatever you call it). In truth it has been so long since I did a column I forgot how to insert a picture among the words. I am sure you are not surprised.

Jay, I know you are from Brooklyn and was wondering what your reaction would be to the story. Your speculation about the number of pins being less than proclaimed is plausible. I presume people could subscribe to the newspaper, and doubt if a pin was manually inserted into each issue (for ten consecutive days, no less). Did they have those square metal boxes back then where you insert a coin to open the box to retrieve a copy of the newspaper? If they did, I can't imagine the Brooklyn Eagle attaching a pin to each issue of the newspaper in the vending machine. That leaves person-to-person points-of-sale as the only other possible way to get a copy of the paper. I also don't know if the Brooklyn Eagle was sold outside of Brooklyn. The ad specifically states the pins were being given out only in Brooklyn. We could probably track down the total circulation of the newspaper, then guestimate how many were sold through news stands. This is the joy/agony of collecting pins. Even when you are lucky enough to track down the origin of a pin, there are some parts to the story that you still don't understand.

[JayZim13]

Paul,

I was the exception to the rule-I was a Brooklyn Dodger fan living in the Bronx in the 50's. I don't have a clue to the distribution of the Eagle. My guess would be that it was a tough sell with NY having the News, Mirror, Journal American, the Post, Herald Tribune and the Times all with substantial followings.

I have been collecting Dodger pins for over 30 years and haven't seen many of these for sale or auction. To me, the advertising might have been pure hype-they had some pins in circulation to try and stimulate sales. If they really were sent to candy stores or distributors we would have seen boxes of these show up sooner or later.

By the way, I still need one for my collection

Jay