The 2014 Little League World Series has been over for weeks. Everyone has gone home. No more vendors or sponsors are handing out tasty food and free pins. If you went there right now, you’d see nothing much going on.
Honda and Little League have been working together since 1996. One of the earliest sponsorship pins was released by Honda in 1998. Nowadays sponsorship pins are nothing new to Little League pin collectors. In fact, that’s the main reason why I go to Little League each year. Tons of companies hand out pins. During the mid-90’s, sponsorship pins started to surface. Collectors now had something else to add to their collection besides the pins that could be purchased at the gift shop.
The 1998 Honda Little League Baseball pin is not only one of the earliest sponsorship pins, it’s also one of the rarest. This pin all by itself can sell for $150.00 to $250.00. Why is it worth so much? That’s a good question. In my research, here is what I found.
Apparently during the 1998 Little League World Series, it rained a lot. This pin wasn’t handed out until the very last day. Due to all the rain, attendance was low. Combine the rain, low attendance, and Honda not distributing this pin until the last day caused the rarity. Sponsorship pins were also not popularized at the time like they are now. So many collectors may not have been on the lookout for them. After that one day, Honda never handed them out again.
What happened to all the leftover pins? They’re probably laying next to those cases of 1952 Topps that were dumped into the Atlantic Ocean.
Filed under: "Pin-Up" of the Week | Tagged: 1998, baseball, honda, league, little, of, pin, pin-up, the, week | Leave a comment »