{"title":"Pins, Badges \u0026 Patches | Original Vintage Pinback Buttons, Badges \u0026 Patches","description":"\u003cp\u003eThis is the button tin. Tin litho toy police badges still on their dime-store cards, Vietnam-era protest and campaign buttons, Apollo 11 moon-landing pins, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie pins from 1990, New Kids on the Block buttons, California Raisins tin pins, and embroidered patches from old uniforms and souvenir stands.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eDig through it the way you would a coffee can of buttons at a flea market, just without the dust.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"vintage-blair-township-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Blair Township Police Tin Litho Toy Badge 🚔 Native Chief Shield, Township Est. 1839 NOS on Card Made in Japan","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWhen Was Blair Township Born? 🔵 A Dime-Store Toy Badge That Knew Its Township's Birthday\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/gavgLeBPfyM\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eMost toy police badges on a five-and-dime rack said SPECIAL POLICE and nothing else. This one names a real place and gets its founding year right. \u003cstrong\u003eBLAIR TOWNSHIP POLICE\u003c\/strong\u003e, with 18 on one side of the shield and 39 on the other: 1839, the year Blair Township was set off from Frankstown Township in what is now Blair County, Pennsylvania. A loose one turns up now and then; still on its card like this, it's a rare one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAnd the police force it names was young. Blair Township had no police department until 1966, when the township supervisors hired Maurice Chamberlain as a part-time chief along with a single part-time patrolman. So here is a tin-litho toy from a Japanese factory carrying a small Pennsylvania township's founding date and the name of a department that started with two part-time officers. It is still pinned to its original yellow \u003cstrong\u003eSPECIAL POLICE BADGE\u003c\/strong\u003e card, marked JAPAN, and still in its clear sleeve. New Old Stock.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🛡️ The Badge and the Card\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe badge is a round \u003cstrong\u003etin lithograph pinback\u003c\/strong\u003e. A red rim circles a yellow ground, and on that ground sits a blue shield edged in navy. \u003cstrong\u003eBLAIR TOWNSHIP\u003c\/strong\u003e arches across the top in black capitals with \u003cstrong\u003ePOLICE\u003c\/strong\u003e beneath it. The date is split around the center, \u003cstrong\u003e18\u003c\/strong\u003e at the left and \u003cstrong\u003e39\u003c\/strong\u003e at the right, and the center of the shield is a left-facing profile of a Native American chief in a red feathered headdress with a cream headband.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe card carries no town name at all; the badge does all the local work. Across the top runs a red banner lettered SPECIAL POLICE BADGE in white. Below it rides a cartoon motorcycle patrolman in a white peaked cap, goggles, dark uniform and tie, gloved hands on the handlebars beside a big round headlamp, with a pale city skyline behind him. JAPAN is printed at the lower right corner of the card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🧭 Which Blair Township?\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAmerica has more than one Blair Township, and the date on the shield settles which one this is. \u003cstrong\u003eBlair Township, Michigan\u003c\/strong\u003e, in Grand Traverse County, was not established until 1867, took its name from Michigan's Civil War governor Austin Blair, and is patrolled today by the county sheriff's office rather than a police department of its own. \u003cstrong\u003eBlair Township, Pennsylvania\u003c\/strong\u003e, was set up in 1839 and has had its own police department since 1966. The 1839 on this badge is the Pennsylvania township's year.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏞️ The Town: Blair Township, Blair County, Pennsylvania\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe land was first settled in 1773, as part of Frankstown Township in what was then Huntingdon County. In 1839 the county court divided Frankstown and gave its western part the name Blair. The new township counted about 1,176 people. It had no towns of any size, only the small villages of Catfish, Vicksburg and Reservoir, sitting among the boroughs of Hollidaysburg, Gaysport and Newry and part of Duncansville.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSeven years later, on February 26, 1846, Blair County itself was formed out of Huntingdon and Bedford counties and given the same name. Today the township covers about 13.7 square miles in the southern part of the county, borders Hollidaysburg and Duncansville to the north, surrounds the borough of Newry, and takes in the communities of Fort Fetter, Penn Farms, Reservoir, Brooks Mill and Vicksburg. The 2020 census counted 4,785 residents. Hollidaysburg, which borders the township, is the Blair County seat. The county's largest city, Altoona, was founded by the Pennsylvania Railroad in 1849, and the railroad finished its Horseshoe Curve there in 1854 to ease the climb to the summit of the Alleghenies.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e👤 The People\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eJohn Blair\u003c\/strong\u003e (1766 to 1832), the man Blair County is named for, was born at Blair's Gap. His state historical marker remembers him as a pioneer farmer, merchant and public servant, an advocate of good roads and a promoter of the Pennsylvania Canal and the Allegheny Portage Railroad, the inclined-plane line that carried canal traffic over the Allegheny ridge. When the township was named in 1839, the order honored \"John Blair, Esq., late a distinguished citizen of Huntingdon County.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eAmong the early settlers, Patrick Cassidy founded Newry, and Henry Campinou and Michael Fetter ran a gristmill near what is now Route 22. Then there are the lawmen. \u003cstrong\u003eMaurice Chamberlain\u003c\/strong\u003e was the department's first chief, part-time, from 1966. In 1976 the township signed on with the Pennsylvania State Police for dispatching, a service known as Blair Base. In 1977 the supervisors made Chief \u003cstrong\u003eRichard Clapper\u003c\/strong\u003e full-time and added a full-time patrolman, \u003cstrong\u003eDenny White\u003c\/strong\u003e. The department that began with two part-time officers now runs five full-time officers and no part-timers.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📜 The Lore: Signal Fires, a Trading Path and Toy Badge Prizes\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eLong before it was a township, this was Native ground. The township's own history names the Delawares, Muncies, Nanticokes, Shawnees and Tutelos among the peoples who lived, hunted and traveled through it, and local tradition tells of Indian signal fires burning on Chimney Rocks, flashing messages to warriors watching in the valley below. Just next door, the state's Frankstown historical marker records a Delaware and Shawnee village called Assunepachla on the Kittanning Path, where the trader Frank Stevens kept a fur post by 1734. Frankstown still carries his name.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eToy badges have a true story of their own. Sheriffs used tin toy badges like this as prizes in youth programs, handing them out to kids. That is where a dime-store toy crossed over into real community life.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏭 The Maker's Trade: Japanese Tin Lithography\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNo maker's name appears anywhere on the badge or card, only JAPAN. Tin lithography means printing a full-color image onto flat sheet tinplate and then stamping and forming the metal, so the picture becomes part of the surface. It is how one small button could carry a shield, a date, a portrait and two lines of lettering, and why the blue and red on this one are still bright. After the war, American occupation authorities ordered Japanese export goods marked \"Occupied Japan\" from February 1947; the occupation ended on April 25, 1952, and Japanese toy makers went on selling bright, inexpensive tin novelties to American variety stores.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🌎 The Impact\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA toy like this carried a real local name into a child's hands: a township's own name and founding year, on a badge naming a police force that had only existed since 1966. Town-named tin litho badges like this one seldom surface today, and they are a different object from the generic SPECIAL POLICE badges with no town at all: the town is what makes them local history.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e✅ Condition\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNew Old Stock. The badge is still pinned to its original card, and badge and card are still together in their clear sleeve.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-sheridan-wyoming-chief-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Sheridan Wyoming Chief Special Police 🦅 Tin Litho Toy Badge Original NOS Card Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1970s-san-francisco-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s San Francisco Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho Button Pin New Old Stock Japan Original Card Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-royal-oak-michigan-auxiliary-police-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Royal Oak Auxiliary Police Tin Litho Toy Badge 🚔 NOS on Card Michigan Seal Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769723007141,"sku":"VAG-7034820755621","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3292700214_ksdl.jpg?v=1785353735"},{"product_id":"vintage-indianapolis-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Indianapolis Police Special Toy Badge Pin 🚔 Tin Litho on Card Mid-Century Japan Dime Store NOS","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Indianapolis Police Toy Badges? 🚔 Indianapolis Police, Monument and All\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/XGMKyVctNS4\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHere's one for anybody who grew up anywhere near Monument Circle. It's a little tin litho pinback button, about an inch and a half across, reading INDIANAPOLIS around the top and POLICE along the bottom in gold on deep navy inside a red rim, and right in the middle, drawn in clean white lines, is the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument. It's still pinned to its yellow card and sealed in its sleeve, just the way it hung on the dime-store rack. It's a toy, made for kids, and a great one. And they're rare - carded or loose, an Indianapolis one just doesn't come up for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe card is half the fun. A cartoon motorcycle cop fills the left side: white cap, big goggles, gloved hands on the handlebars, a city skyline behind him, all under a red banner that reads SPECIAL POLICE BADGE. Down in the corner, in small letters, it says JAPAN. That's where these were made, printed in tin by Japanese lithographers for the American dime-store trade. And it's plain JAPAN, with no \"Occupied\" in front of it. Right after the war the occupation authorities ordered every Japanese export marked \"Made in Occupied Japan\" (that order came down in February 1947), then loosened it in December 1949 so makers could go back to \"Made in Japan\" or just \"Japan,\" and the occupation itself ended on April 28, 1952.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏛️ The Monument on the Button\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat tower isn't just decoration. The real Indianapolis police carried the Soldiers' and Sailors' Monument on their own badge, so whoever drew this toy was copying the real thing, the same way the other buttons on this card copy their own towns' patches.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe monument came out of an 1887 design competition. Seventy designs came in, and the winner, picked unanimously, was Bruno Schmitz of Berlin with an entry he called \u003cem\u003eSymbol of Indiana\u003c\/em\u003e. It took from 1888 to 1901 to build out of Owen County limestone, it was dedicated on May 15, 1902, and it stands 284 feet 6 inches to the top of \u003cem\u003eVictory\u003c\/em\u003e, the thirty-foot, ten-ton bronze figure on the crown. It honors Hoosiers who served from the Revolution through the Spanish-American War, and it has been the picture of the city ever since. Look at the button and you can see it drawn in miniature: the wide stepped base and the shaft rising above it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e👮 Indianapolis Police, 1854 to 2006\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Indianapolis Police Department went on duty September 1, 1854, and its first officers had nothing but a silver star to tell you who they were. They got uniforms in July 1862 (a dark blue coat, light blue trousers with a cord down the seam, and a blue cap), and around the turn of the century they were patrolling on Rambler bicycles. The department ran right up to December 31, 2006. The next day it merged with the road division of the Marion County Sheriff's Office to become the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department, so the name on this little button belongs to a department that isn't there anymore.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere's no date on the card, but the rest of the family gives it away. The same yellow card carries a New York City button copying the NYPD patch adopted in July 1971 and a San Francisco button copying the patch the SFPD added around 1970, so these were hanging on the racks in the 1970s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🚔 The Real Junior Programs Behind Badges Like This\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDime-store tin badges did not live in a vacuum. Across mid-century America, real law enforcement agencies ran junior deputy and junior police programs: sheriffs swore in wide-eyed honorary junior deputies at county fairs and school assemblies, police departments sponsored school safety patrols — a movement that began in the 1920s and put belts and badges on millions of schoolchildren — and an officer handing a kid a badge at a parade or classroom visit was a familiar piece of civic life. Sheriffs gave tin badges just like this one out as prizes in their youth programs, too. An Indianapolis Special Police badge in a child's hand belonged to that same world, the era when a badge from a trusted grown-up could make a kid stand a little straighter. That is the history a carded survivor like this carries beyond its tin and ink.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-abilene-texas-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Abilene Police Special Police Toy Badge 🦅 Tin Litho Pin-Back Button NOS Japan Card Mid-Century\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-suffolk-county-new-york-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Suffolk County NY Tin Litho Pin-Back Button NOS on Display Card Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-royal-oak-michigan-auxiliary-police-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Royal Oak Auxiliary Police Tin Litho Toy Badge 🚔 NOS on Card Michigan Seal Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769723433125,"sku":"VAG-7034820853925","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3292686966_5ym3_1e68f985-d2f3-42a1-b66a-7d3e244ef720.jpg?v=1785353746"},{"product_id":"vintage-laurens-county-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🌟 Laurens County Sheriff's Dept — 1960s-1970s Japan, Original Card","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWho Carried a Laurens County Special Police Badge? 🛡️ A Special Police Badge, Still on the Card\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Hp9A91deH0Y\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHere's a little tin litho badge that never left its cardboard home. It's still sealed in the sleeve, pinned to a yellow card with a red banner across the top reading SPECIAL POLICE BADGE. A cartoon motorcycle cop fills the left side of the card: white cap, big goggles strapped across his eyes, gloved hands on the bars, a city skyline behind him. Small letters down in the corner say JAPAN, which is where these were made. The round button rides on the right side of the card, and it's got a name on it: Laurens County. And they're rare - carded or loose, a Laurens County one just doesn't come up for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🌟 Which Laurens County?\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe button doesn't say which state, so I'll give you both. There's a Laurens County in South Carolina, formed March 12, 1785, and a Laurens County in Georgia, formed December 10, 1807 — and they share a namesake. The Carolina county is named for Henry Laurens, a Charleston merchant who served as President of the Continental Congress. After that, Congress picked him to go to Holland to raise a loan and win an alliance with the Dutch. In the fall of 1780, not long after he set out, the British frigate \u003cem\u003eVestal\u003c\/em\u003e caught his ship off Newfoundland and locked him up in the Tower of London — he's the \u003cem\u003eonly\u003c\/em\u003e American who can say that — and he sat there over a year before he was traded straight-up for General Cornwallis and went on to help negotiate the peace that ended the war. His dispatches went over the side when the \u003cem\u003eVestal\u003c\/em\u003e caught him, but the British fished them back out of the water, and in the bundle was a draft of a treaty between the Americans and the Dutch. It helped push Britain into declaring war on the Dutch Republic before 1780 was out. Quite a haul to pull out of the North Atlantic. \u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Georgia county is named for his son, Lieutenant Colonel John Laurens, an aide-de-camp to George Washington who was killed in 1782, one of the last men lost before the fighting stopped. It happened on August 27 at the Combahee River in South Carolina, in what General Nathanael Greene called \"a paltry little skirmish\" with a British foraging party, and that December the British pulled out of Charleston. Whichever Laurens County this badge was made for, it's the same family's name riding on that button.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIf it's the Carolina one, that's Piedmont country, a county of forests and gently rolling hills in the old upcountry. There's a good old story about how the county seat landed where it is: the delegation sent to pick the spot met at John Rodgers' distillery, and tradition has it that after imbibing freely they climbed the hill, found a level place, and chose it for the courthouse. The sober explanation is that there was water close by and five upcountry roads met right there, but I know which version I'd rather tell. By the turn of the century the county was spinning cotton instead of just growing it: Laurens Cotton Mill opened in 1895 and a mill in Clinton followed in 1896, the Lydia, Watts and Joanna mills started up too, and the company-built mill villages around them stayed a big part of Laurens County life until well after World War II.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e⭐ The Button Itself\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a round tin litho piece with a red rim and a yellow-green band inside it, and at the center a black shield outlined in red. LAURENS arches across the top of the shield in orange, and COUNTY curves along the bottom to match. Dead center sits a pale blue five-point star, and printed across the star in black block letters: \u003cstrong\u003eSHERIFF'S DEPT.\u003c\/strong\u003e Simple, bright, and built to catch a kid's eye.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNo date is printed on the card itself, but the family it comes from gives it away. This same yellow card also turns up with a New York badge copying the NYPD patch adopted July 1, 1971, and a San Francisco badge copying the patch the SFPD added around 1970. That puts this whole run of cards on the rack in the 1970s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd tin was an old trade in Japan by then. Under the Allied occupation after the war, 1945 to 1952 with General MacArthur in charge for most of it, Japan's tin toy makers got the go-ahead to start production again, and by the end of the 1950s Japan had become a tin toy powerhouse. Cheaper plastic took over through the 1960s, so a tin litho button on a card like this one comes from late in that long run.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e👮 Junior Deputies, Safety Patrols, and the World This Badge Lived In\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a real history standing behind every mid-century toy badge. This was the era of the junior deputy and the school safety patrol: sheriffs' offices swore children in as honorary junior deputies at fairs and school assemblies, safety patrol programs — running strong since the 1920s — pinned badges on generations of schoolchildren, and a visit from an officer with badges to hand out was a fixture of American civic childhood. A Laurens County Sheriff's Department badge belonged to that world. Sheriffs gave tin badges just like this one out as prizes in their youth programs, too. When a child pinned one on, the game borrowed its seriousness from programs that were entirely real — and that is part of the history a survivor like this one still carries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-lee-county-georgia-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Lee County Georgia Sheriff Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge Pin 🚔 New Old Stock on Card\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-phoenix-arizona-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Phoenix Arizona Special Police Toy Badge 🔥 Tin Litho Pinback Button, Japan NOS\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-sauk-county-wisconsin-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🔴 Sauk County Sheriff's Dept Wisconsin Tin Litho Button on Original Card Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769723662501,"sku":"VAG-7034820952229","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3292665240_axpv_4725a2c8-30b3-4174-a78c-304e6dc81fd5.jpg?v=1785353755"},{"product_id":"vintage-suffolk-county-new-york-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Suffolk County NY Tin Litho Pin-Back Button NOS on Display Card Made in Japan","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Suffolk County Special Police Toy Badges? 🚔 A Suffolk County Special, Still on the Card\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/_5i8DQooTnw\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHere's a Suffolk County one, still sealed on its card the way it hung on the dime-store rack. It's a little tin litho pinback, about an inch and a half across, still pinned to its yellow card in its original sleeve — a toy, made for a kid's shirt pocket, and a nicely made one. And they're rare - carded or loose, a Suffolk County one just doesn't come up for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe card is the same one this whole family shares. A motorcycle cop in a white cap and big goggles leans over the handlebars in a dark uniform and yellow gloves, a city skyline behind him, under a red banner reading SPECIAL POLICE BADGE on a yellow field. JAPAN is printed small in the corner; these were tin lithographed there for the American dime-store trade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗺️ Suffolk County, Long Island\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSuffolk is one of New York's original counties, created in 1683 and named for Suffolk in England, and it runs from the Nassau line all the way out to Montauk Point and Orient Point. The real Suffolk County Police Department is a lot younger than a badge like this might suggest. It came together on January 1, 1960, with 619 officers on the roster. Before that, policing out on Long Island was a patchwork — each town and village ran its own department, and the New York State Police backed them up. The county force was only about ten years old when these hit the racks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd that county was filling up fast. Right after the war Levittown went up over in Nassau, and the rush out of the city kept rolling east. Suffolk went from about 276,000 people in 1950 to 667,000 in 1960 and past a million by 1970, a whole new generation of Long Islanders growing up in brand-new houses on brand-new streets. A lot of them were kids, too: by 1970 the county counted about 270,000 children between five and fourteen, close to one resident in four. That's a lot of shirt pockets for a Suffolk County badge.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🦅 What's On the Badge\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe button itself is a nice bit of small-scale work. There's a red rim on the outside, a ring of navy blue inside that, and then the red field where the design sits. A gold eagle spreads its wings across the top, a banner underneath reads POLICE, and below that a round seal reads COUNTY OF SUFFOLK, NEW YORK, with a pair of laurel sprigs fanning out at the bottom. In the middle of that seal stands a rust-orange animal on a navy-blue ground that most folks call a bull. The county seal actually carries an ox, and this little button copies it right down to that. That ox goes all the way back to the county's first seal. In 1784 the Board of Supervisors had Elias Pelletreau, the Southampton silversmith, make a seal \"the bigness of a half-dollar\" in \"the figure of an ox,\" with the motto Freedom and Independence. There's no official word on why they picked an ox, but it's often said to stand for the county's farming roots.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere's no date on the card, but the family it belongs to gives it away. The same card design turns up with a New York City button copying the NYPD patch adopted in July 1971, and a San Francisco button copying the patch the SFPD added around 1970 — so these were on the racks in the 1970s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e⭐ When Kids Really Did Get Badges from the Law\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mid-century American childhood this badge comes from was full of real badges given by real officers. Junior deputy programs let sheriffs swear in schoolkids as honorary deputies; school safety patrol programs, organized since the 1920s, put badges and belts on millions of children; police departments handed out badges at parades, fairs, and classroom visits as a matter of civic routine. Sheriffs gave tin badges just like this one out as prizes in their youth programs, too. A Suffolk County badge was the dime-store cousin of all that — the badge a kid could buy with pocket change. That documented world of junior programs is the backdrop this little survivor belongs to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-department-of-defense-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Department of Defense DOD Eagle Seal Pinback Made in Japan 1960s-1970s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-sheridan-wyoming-chief-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Sheridan Wyoming Chief Special Police 🦅 Tin Litho Toy Badge Original NOS Card Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-indianapolis-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Indianapolis Police Special Toy Badge Pin 🚔 Tin Litho on Card Mid-Century Japan Dime Store NOS\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769724088485,"sku":"VAG-7034821050533","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3340341519_tmwi.jpg?v=1785353763"},{"product_id":"vintage-woodbury-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Woodbury Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho on Original Pin, NOS Japan Collectible","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Woodbury Special Police Toy Badges? 🚔 Woodbury Police, Wings and Scales\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/8IrY3dqczvo\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHere's a good one. This is a tin litho pinback button, red rim, about an inch and a half across, still pinned to its yellow card and sealed in the sleeve just like it hung on a dime-store rack. A blue shield outlined in orange reads WOODBURY across the top and POLICE along the bottom, and in the middle a gold eagle spreads its wings \u003cem\u003ewide\u003c\/em\u003e, holding a small white shield printed with the scales of justice, an olive branch in one talon and a wheat sheaf in the other. Two flags cross behind it - the Stars and Stripes on one side, a flag with a circle of stars on the other, the old thirteen-star pattern folks call the Betsy Ross flag - and a small cap-badge with a touch of red sits above the eagle's head. That's a lot of symbolism packed into something you'd have bought for a dime. And they're rare - carded or loose, a Woodbury one just doesn't come up for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe card is the one this whole family shares: a red banner up top reads \u003cstrong\u003eSPECIAL POLICE BADGE\u003c\/strong\u003e, and the rest of it is a cartoon motorcycle cop - white peaked cap, big goggles, a gloved hand on the bars, a city skyline behind him. He's square-jawed and dead serious, drawn in that old newspaper comic-strip style - a little Dick Tracy on a motorcycle, and I love him for it. JAPAN is printed small in the corner. It's a toy through and through, built for a kid's shirt pocket, and a fun one to look at.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🦅 An Eagle, Scales, and No State Printed\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe button doesn't say which Woodbury it's for - no state printed anywhere on it. There are Woodbury police departments in Connecticut, New Jersey, New York and Tennessee, and this eagle-and-scales design doesn't match any of their patches, so it looks like the artist's own idea of what a police emblem ought to be. What it does show is worth a closer look: the scales of justice on that little shield, the eagle with its wings fully spread, the olive branch and wheat sheaf crossed underneath, the two flags, the small badge overhead. Whoever drew this wasn't phoning it in - it reads like somebody sat down and designed an actual \u003cem\u003edepartment seal\u003c\/em\u003e, eagle and all. Real municipal police departments wear patches built from exactly these pieces: an eagle, a shield, crossed flags, a set of scales. This one's a toy company's version of that same visual language, made to look the part pinned to a kid's shirt.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere's no date printed anywhere on the card, but the family it belongs to gives it away. This same yellow card also carries a New York City button copying the NYPD patch adopted in July 1971, and a San Francisco button copying the patch the SFPD added around 1970 - so this whole run was sitting on dime-store racks in the 1970s. No maker or importer is printed on either the card or the button; whoever made these kept their name off it. That little JAPAN in the corner has a story of its own, though. After the war, the occupation headquarters ordered Japanese exports marked \"Occupied Japan\" - the order is dated February 1947 - and plenty of factories kept using those words until the occupation ended in April 1952. No \"Occupied\" on this one, just JAPAN. The heyday of Japanese tin toys came right after, roughly 1952 to 1962, when they filled the counters at Woolworth, Grants, Ben Franklin, Newberry, G.C. Murphy and McCrory's. After that, plastic took over and much of the work moved on to Hong Kong and Taiwan - so a tin litho badge still coming out of Japan and hanging on a 1970s rack is a late piece of that whole tradition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🚔 The Real Junior Programs Behind Badges Like This\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDime-store tin badges did not live in a vacuum. Across mid-century America, real law enforcement agencies ran junior deputy and junior police programs: sheriffs swore in wide-eyed honorary junior deputies at county fairs and school assemblies, police departments sponsored school safety patrols — a movement that began in the 1920s and put belts and badges on millions of schoolchildren — and an officer handing a kid a badge at a parade or classroom visit was a familiar piece of civic life. Sheriffs gave tin badges just like this one out as prizes in their youth programs, too. A Woodbury Special Police badge in a child's hand belonged to that same world, the era when a badge from a trusted grown-up could make a kid stand a little straighter. That is the history a carded survivor like this carries beyond its tin and ink.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-abilene-texas-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Abilene Police Special Police Toy Badge 🦅 Tin Litho Pin-Back Button NOS Japan Card Mid-Century\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-florida-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Florida Highway Patrol 🍊 Special Police Toy Badge Pin NOS Carded Tin Litho Made in Japan Mid-Century\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-department-of-defense-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Department of Defense DOD Eagle Seal Pinback Made in Japan 1960s-1970s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769725202597,"sku":"VAG-7034821279909","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3292544518_4mcr.jpg?v=1785353772"},{"product_id":"vintage-gainesville-florida-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Gainesville Police 🚔 Special Tin Lithography Badge NOS Original Card Japan Novelty Pin","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWhy Is Gainesville Called Hogtown? 🌴 Hogtown's police, in tin, on a card printed in Japan\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e Badge 1 1\/2\" ~ Card 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/F_QZDOmZ81I\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eGainesville, Florida started life as Hogtown, a Seminole village where hogs were raised. This little tin button puts GAINESVILLE POLICE on a navy shield around a red map of Florida, a green palm and a white star, and rides a yellow card with a cartoon motorcycle cop under the words SPECIAL POLICE BADGE. It is a dime-store toy made in Japan, and town-named tin litho badges like it rarely surface for sale anywhere. What it keeps is a whole chain of history that is easy to lose: a railroad town named for a Seminole War general, the police force that grew up with it, the university that invented Gatorade, and the last years of Japan's tin toy trade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWhat is printed on the badge and the card\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe badge is a round tin lithograph with a dark edge and a red field, carrying a navy police-style shield trimmed in gold. GAINESVILLE arches across the top of the shield in gold capitals and POLICE sits along the bottom. In a gold-ringed circle at the center, the state of Florida is printed in red with a white star in the north-central part of the peninsula, and a green palm tree leans over a curving strip of shore. A gold star stands on each side of the lower shield. The front is tin litho; the back is a thick plastic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe card is yellow, with a red header lettered SPECIAL POLICE BADGE and a comic-style motorcycle officer in a white peaked cap and dark goggles, gloved hands on the handlebars, a pale skyline behind him. JAPAN is printed in the lower right corner. The card is still in its clear sleeve.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ Dating the card\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe card does the dating. The identical SPECIAL POLICE BADGE card, the same motorcycle officer in the same place, was also printed for a New York City button that copies the NYPD shoulder patch — and New York did not adopt that patch until July 1, 1971. So this card series was still in production in the 1970s, which fits the badge's 1960s-1970s place in the long run of Japanese tin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🐖 From Hogtown to a railroad county seat\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePeople lived on this ground for a very long time before any town. Archaeologists have found traces of Paleo-Indians from about 12,000 years ago, a Deptford culture campsite from roughly 500 BCE to 100 CE, and when Europeans arrived the Potano people held the region. By 1824 a Seminole settlement called Hogtown, after the hogs its families raised, counted fourteen inhabitants. After the Treaty of Moultrie Creek removed the Seminoles, American settlers took Hogtown over in the late 1820s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGainesville itself was a railroad decision. David Levy Yulee's Florida Railroad, running from Fernandina to Cedar Key, was going to bypass the Alachua County seat at Newnansville, so in 1853 county residents decided to move the seat to the line. Meeting at Boulware Springs to choose a name, they settled on Edmund Pendleton Gaines, the general who had fought in the area during the Second Seminole War. The new town was founded in 1854 a few miles east of Hogtown, the rails reached it from Fernandina in 1859, six blocks south of the courthouse, and it was incorporated in 1869 and chartered as a city in 1907.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe year before that charter, in 1906, the University of the State of Florida moved to Gainesville from Lake City; it became simply the University of Florida in 1909. The campus gave the town its most famous invention. In 1965 Dr. Robert Cade and his team at the UF College of Medicine tested the Gator football players, found their electrolytes and blood sugar badly out of balance in the Florida heat, and mixed a drink of salts and sugars. It was first used in a Gator victory in October 1965, helped the team win the 1967 Orange Bowl, and took its name from the mascot: Gatorade, the drink that started the sports-drink industry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🚓 The real Gainesville Police Department\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe department's own history reads like a small-town force growing into a city one. Gainesville bought its first police car, a Ford Motor Company Model T, in 1908. In 1922 the entire department was three men, chief included, and a set salary for the chief and officers came only in 1926. In 1928 the Model T gave way to a Model A, and C.E. Strickland became the city's first motorcycle patrol officer. Chief W.B. Cahoon had the department's first radio transmitter built in 1935.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnder Chief William D. Joiner in 1946, Oscar Lewis became the department's first African-American police officer. In August 1953 the force, 40 officers strong, moved into a new building at 721 NW 6th Street, and a 1962 renovation doubled the station's size.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe years this card series was on the racks brought the biggest changes. Gainesville's population had more than doubled, from 29,701 in 1960 to 64,510 in 1970, and reached 81,371 by 1980. Elaine Garrett became the first sworn policewoman in 1970, working as a detective. In 1975 Fern Nix and Sylvia Sadlack (Hill) became the first women on uniform patrol. By 1976 the department had 101 sworn officers answering 45,394 calls for service, and in 1980 Atkins Warren became Gainesville's first African-American chief.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe city was a national story in those years too. The Gainesville Eight, eight men, seven of them members of Vietnam Veterans Against the War, were accused of planning violence at the 1972 Republican National Convention in Miami. Their trial ran alongside the Watergate revelations, brought to light government informants inside the veterans' group, and ended with a jury acquitting all eight on August 31, 1973, after a 14-month legal fight.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e⭐ Prize badges and kid cops\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTin badges like this one were more than store toys. Sheriffs running youth programs handed them out as prizes, and a badge from a grown-up in uniform meant something to the kid who earned it. Putting children in police badges is an old American tradition: in 1914 John Sweeney, a New York police captain on the Lower East Side, founded the Junior Police, which at its peak had more than 4,000 uniformed boys drilling in 22 precincts and became the Police Athletic League in 1936. I love that the kids who wore these had a cop hero waiting in the funny papers too. Dick Tracy had been solving crimes with his two-way wrist radio since 1946. The radio got upgraded to a two-way wrist TV in 1964, and his creator, Chester Gould, kept drawing him right up to 1977.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎌 The MacArthur story, and the end of the tin era\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe story goes that these badges came out of General Douglas MacArthur's rebuilding of Japan. The rebuilding was real. Under the Allied Occupation, from 1945 to 1952, Japanese exports carried the mark \"Occupied Japan,\" and the tin toy trade that grew out of those years reached its golden age from about 1952 to 1962, when Japan made nearly all of the world's battery-operated toys and American five-and-dimes — Woolworth, W.T. Grant, Ben Franklin, J.J. Newberry, G.C. Murphy and McCrory's — stocked them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis badge is marked simply JAPAN, on a card still in use in the 1970s, so it comes from that trade's long afterlife rather than its first chapter. By then plastic was replacing tin, Japanese wages were rising and safety rules were tightening, and toy work was moving to Hong Kong and Taiwan. A Florida town's police name, lithographed on tin in Japan for an American toy rack, carries that whole arc in a button an inch and a half across.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-sauk-county-wisconsin-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🔴 Sauk County Sheriff's Dept Wisconsin Tin Litho Button on Original Card Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-abilene-texas-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Abilene Police Special Police Toy Badge 🦅 Tin Litho Pin-Back Button NOS Japan Card Mid-Century\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-blair-township-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Blair Township Police Tin Litho Toy Badge 🚔 Native Chief Shield, Township Est. 1839 NOS on Card Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769725235365,"sku":"VAG-7034821378213","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3340225989_sgq2.jpg?v=1785353781"},{"product_id":"vintage-sheridan-wyoming-chief-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Sheridan Wyoming Chief Special Police 🦅 Tin Litho Toy Badge Original NOS Card Japan","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWho Was Chief of Police in Sheridan, Wyoming? 🦅 Sheridan, Wyoming, Chief of Police\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Em_hmXnyJZA\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eHere's a badge with a whole state seal packed onto it. It's a tin litho pinback, about an inch and a half across, with a starburst behind the lettering and an eagle on top, wings spread. Under the eagle, arched small, CHIEF, then SHERIDAN arched across the top of a ring and POLICE along the bottom. The center reads STATE OF WYOMING around a miniature of the state seal, tiny enough that you can only just make out its figures. These come still pinned to their cards and sealed in their sleeves, the way they hung on the rack. It's a toy, made for kids, and a good-looking one. And they're rare - carded or loose, a Sheridan one just doesn't come up for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe card is half the fun. It shows a cartoon motorcycle cop, with a banner reading SPECIAL POLICE BADGE. Down in the corner, small letters: JAPAN. That's where these were tin lithographed for the American dime-store trade. Real police badges were a different animal, made by American badge houses like Blackinton, who've been making police badges in Attleboro Falls, Massachusetts since just after the Civil War, and out West, Ed Jones, which got its start in a backyard shed in Oakland, and Sun Badge down in Southern California.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏔️ Sheridan, Wyoming — The Town on the Badge\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eYou'll find Sheridan in north-central Wyoming, right under the Bighorns, and the man who laid it out is a story worth telling. John D. Loucks, a Civil War veteran, paid a trapper named George Mandel fifty dollars for forty acres. In spring 1882 he sat down on a hill above Goose Creek and platted the town, and the story goes that he drew the plat on a sheet of wrapping paper. He gave it the name of General Philip Sheridan, the man he had served under, then served as its first postmaster and first mayor and watched it incorporate in 1884. That same year Theodore Roosevelt left his ranch on the Little Missouri, out in the Dakota Badlands, for quite a long trip through the cattle country of southeastern Montana and northern Wyoming, and spent a fortnight hunting elk and bear up in these same Bighorns. He tracked a grizzly through their pine woods that he reckoned at about twelve hundred pounds, and wrote the whole thing up in Hunting Trips of a Ranchman, out the next year.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Burlington and Missouri Railroad reached town in November 1892 and Sheridan took off - local business paid off thirty thousand dollars in bank loans in the first month, and the population climbed from 1,559 in 1900 to 8,408 by 1910, fueled by the coal mines at Dietz, Monarch and Acme. The Sheridan Inn opened its doors in 1893. Buffalo Bill Cody invested in it and made it his headquarters for tryouts, where he auditioned local cowboys and cowgirls for his Wild West show's European tours. It was reputed to be the finest hotel anywhere between Chicago and San Francisco, and its guests included Will Rogers, Ernest Hemingway and Calvin Coolidge. A Sheridan cattleman, John B. Kendrick, went on to be governor in 1914, and from 1917 until 1933 he served as a US Senator.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🦬 The State Seal on the Badge\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat the badge copies is the real Great Seal of Wyoming, which was adopted in 1893 and revised in 1921: a draped woman holding up a banner that reads EQUAL RIGHTS (it was Wyoming Territory that gave women the vote, back in 1869, the first in the country to do it), flanked by two men representing livestock and mining, a star marked 44 standing for the 44th state, plus scrolls that read Oil, Mines, Livestock and Grain. Quite a lot of seal to shrink onto an inch-and-a-half button.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere's no date on the card itself, but the rest of the family gives it away. The same card design shows up with an NYPD button, which copies the patch New York adopted on July 1, 1971, and with a San Francisco button, which copies a patch SFPD added around 1970. That puts these on the racks in the 1970s. The card and the badge name no maker or importer; whoever ran this line kept their name off it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e⭐ When Kids Really Did Get Badges from the Law\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mid-century American childhood this badge comes from was full of real badges given by real officers. Junior deputy programs let sheriffs swear in schoolkids as honorary deputies; school safety patrol programs, organized since the 1920s, put badges and belts on millions of children; police departments handed out badges at parades, fairs, and classroom visits as a matter of civic routine. Sheriffs also gave out tin badges of exactly this kind as prizes in their youth programs. Next to all that, a Sheridan, Wyoming Chief Special Police badge was the dime-store version, the one a kid could buy with pocket change. That documented world of junior programs is the backdrop this little survivor belongs to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-suffolk-county-new-york-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Suffolk County NY Tin Litho Pin-Back Button NOS on Display Card Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-florida-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Florida Highway Patrol 🍊 Special Police Toy Badge Pin NOS Carded Tin Litho Made in Japan Mid-Century\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-blair-township-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Blair Township Police Tin Litho Toy Badge 🚔 Native Chief Shield, Township Est. 1839 NOS on Card Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769726283941,"sku":"VAG-7034821476517","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3292502554_lymj.jpg?v=1785353791"},{"product_id":"vintage-town-of-conway-new-hampshire-police-tin-litho-toy-badge","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Town of Conway New Hampshire Police Tin Litho Toy Badge 🦅 NOS on Card Made in Japan","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Conway, New Hampshire Police Toy Badges? Town of Conway, New Hampshire: a White Mountains Name on a Dime-Store Police Badge 🦅\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/rMLLO6wvrPY\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eConway has been sending visitors home with pictures of itself ever since landscape painters discovered its mountains in 1850. Chromolithograph views, depot tickets, ski lessons, scenic train rides: the town has long sent its name out into the world on small printed things. This badge carries it in a way few would expect: a carded Special Police toy badge, made in Japan for the five-and-dime counter, with TOWN OF CONWAY and NEW HAMPSHIRE printed on ribbons around a spread-winged eagle. It is still on its original card, inside a clear sleeve, New Old Stock. Tin litho badges stamped with a real town's name seldom come up for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWhat Is on the Card and the Badge\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe card measures 4 x 2.25 inches. A red band across the top reads SPECIAL POLICE BADGE in white capitals. Below it, on a sunny yellow ground, a cartoon motorcycle officer rides in front of a pale city skyline: white peaked cap, riding goggles down over his eyes, a strap under his chin, dark uniform and tie, green gloves on the handlebars and a big round headlamp at the bottom edge. Small capitals at the lower right say JAPAN.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe badge is a round button about the size of a silver dollar. POLICE arches across the top with a star beneath it, and an eagle spreads its wings across the center, an olive branch in one talon and a sheaf of arrows in the other, a stars-and-stripes shield on its breast. Ribbons run down both sides of the shield and end in scrolls at the bottom, reading TOWN OF CONWAY on the left and NEW HAMPSHIRE on the right.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe eagle's pose is borrowed from the highest source there is. An eagle clutching an olive branch and arrows, with a striped shield on its breast, is the design of the Great Seal of the United States, adopted by the Continental Congress in 1782 — peace in one talon, readiness in the other. On a toy, it gives a small-town badge the look of authority a child could wear.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eDating the Card\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe goggled rider was not made for Conway alone. The same SPECIAL POLICE BADGE card, marked JAPAN, carries buttons for other places, and one of them reproduces the San Francisco Police Department's shoulder patch, a design the SFPD approved in 1969 and first wore in 1970. That fits the 1960s–1970s window these carded badges belong to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt also makes this a late product of a famous trade. During the Allied occupation, from 1945 to 1952, Japanese exports were marked \"Made in Occupied Japan\"; after that, plain JAPAN. Collectors put the heyday of Japanese tin toys at roughly 1952 to 1962, after which plastic became the material of choice, labor costs rose, safety rules tightened and cheap toy making moved to Hong Kong and Taiwan. A tin litho badge on a JAPAN card from these years is a late product of that trade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eConway: Chartered in 1765\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1765 colonial Governor Benning Wentworth chartered sixty-five men to establish Conway, naming it for Henry Seymour Conway, who went on to become Commander in Chief of the British Army. The grant came with terms: to keep his land, a settler had to plant five acres for every fifty in his share, and do it within five years. The town grew along the Saco River and its tributary the Swift River, and today its villages include Conway, North Conway, Center Conway, Redstone, Kearsarge, Intervale and East Conway. With 9,822 people at the 2020 census, it is the most populous community in Carroll County.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThese days folks call this whole stretch of country the Mount Washington Valley, after the big mountain to the north: 6,288 feet, the highest peak in the Northeast, and there's a rest stop in Intervale with a fine view of it and the rest of the Presidential Range. That name is younger than the town by about two centuries. This corner of the White Mountains used to be called the Eastern Slope Region (keep that in mind when the Eastern Slope Ski School turns up further down), and it was local businesses and the Chamber of Commerce that gave it the Mount Washington Valley name in the 1960s. I like that this little badge comes from just about those same years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eThe Painters Who Put North Conway on the Map\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eBenjamin Champney first saw the Conway country in 1838. In 1850 he came back with his friend John Frederick Kensett, and their paintings and enthusiasm drew so many Boston and New York artists that North Conway blossomed into what is often called the first artist colony in the United States. Champney married in 1853 and bought a house between Conway and North Conway that was his summer home for more than fifty years; his studio became a social center for visitors from all over the country. His paintings were turned into chromolithographs and sold to tourists who could not afford the originals, an early chapter in the souvenir trade that still runs through the valley.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eThe Railroad, the Depot and the Scenic Line\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe Portsmouth, Great Falls and Conway Railroad entered Conway in 1871 and reached North Conway in 1872, and tourism expanded dramatically. In 1874 the railroad built North Conway's depot, an eclectic Russian-Victorian building designed by Nathaniel J. Bradlee, with a ticket office, a baggage room and separate waiting rooms for men and women. The last Boston-bound passenger train left in 1961, freight service ended on October 30, 1972, and the line was abandoned. Then Dwight A. Smith, with partners Carroll P. Reed and William Levy, restored the depot, and on August 4, 1974 the Conway Scenic Railroad opened to the public and sold its first 94 excursion tickets. The depot and yard joined the National Register of Historic Places in 1979.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eSkis, Schneider and the Skimobile\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNorth Conway's other great draw is snow. New York banker Harvey Gibson founded Cranmore, which opened for the 1937–38 season with a single rope tow, and for the next winter local mechanic George Morton designed the Skimobile: small cars running up a wooden trestle, pulled by a cable under the track. Gibson then did something far bigger. When the Nazis took over Austria in March 1938, the famed ski teacher Hannes Schneider was imprisoned and his school seized. Gibson used financial pressure to win the release of Schneider and his family, and on February 11, 1939 they stepped off the train at North Conway station and walked beneath an arch of raised ski poles held by junior skiers of the Eastern Slope Ski School. Gibson put Schneider in charge of Cranmore.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eThe Kancamagus, and the Legend of Chocorua\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn August 1959 two dead-end stretches of mountain road were joined to open the Kancamagus Highway, which runs about 56 miles west from Conway to Lincoln and was paved in 1964. It is named for Kancamagus, the \"Fearless One,\" grandson of Passaconaway and the third and final sagamore of the Penacook Confederacy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eSouth of town rises Mount Chocorua, and with it the White Mountains' best-known legend. The story goes that Chocorua, a chief of the Pequawket people, befriended a settler named Cornelius Campbell, and that Chocorua's son, left in the Campbells' care, drank a poison Campbell had mixed for foxes and died. Chocorua took his revenge, the Campbell family was found dead, and Campbell chased the chief to the summit and shot him there. With his dying breath, legend has it, Chocorua cursed the settlers, their land, their homes and their cattle. Boston writer Lydia Maria Child set the tale down in 1829 to accompany an engraving by Thomas Cole, who also painted the scene. Historian Mary Ellen Lepionka has written about how little evidence stands behind the tale, and Chocorua may never have lived, but the curse has been told for nearly two hundred years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eDime-Store Counters, Sheriffs' Prizes and Rice-Paper Crates\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCarded badges like this sold for pocket change on the novelty racks of variety chains such as the F. W. Woolworth Company and the S. S. Kresge Company and at small-town five-and-dimes. They did another job too: sheriffs handed tin litho badges like these out as prizes in youth programs, in the same America where AAA clubs began organizing School Safety Patrols in the 1920s and millions of schoolchildren wore belts and badges to cross younger classmates at the curb.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA dealer who sold off a retiring friend's old store stock of carded Japanese Special Police badges described the master cases as old rice paper, marked Made in Japan, and wholesale boxes of six dozen, 72 carded badges to a box, still surface now and then. That rice-paper crate is how collectors picture these badges crossing the Pacific.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1970s-san-francisco-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s San Francisco Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho Button Pin New Old Stock Japan Original Card Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-commonwealth-of-massachusetts-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Commonwealth of Massachusetts Tin Litho New Old Stock on Original Card\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-indianapolis-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Indianapolis Police Special Toy Badge Pin 🚔 Tin Litho on Card Mid-Century Japan Dime Store NOS\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769727168677,"sku":"VAG-7034821673125","price":17.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3290523742_javj.jpg?v=1785353800"},{"product_id":"vintage-royal-oak-michigan-auxiliary-police-tin-litho-toy-badge","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Royal Oak Auxiliary Police Tin Litho Toy Badge 🚔 NOS on Card Michigan Seal Made in Japan","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Royal Oak Auxiliary Police Toy Badges? 🚔 A Royal Oak Special, Still on the Card\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/io5caeDbQ2k\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis one's for anybody with Royal Oak or metro Detroit roots. It's a tin litho pinback button, about an inch and a half across, a navy shield outlined in orange reading ROYAL OAK across the top, AUXILIARY just under it, and POLICE curving along the bottom, all in warm orange on that dark blue field. It's still pinned to its yellow card and sealed in its sleeve, the way it hung on a dime-store rack. It's a toy, made for kids, and a good one. And they're rare - carded or loose, a Royal Oak one just doesn't come up for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe card is half the show. A cartoon motorcycle cop fills the left side: white peaked cap, big motorcycle goggles, gloved hands on the handlebars, a city skyline sketched in behind him, all under a red banner reading SPECIAL POLICE BADGE. Down in the corner it says JAPAN, small. That's where these were made, tin lithographed for the American dime-store trade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🦌 What the Little Shield Actually Shows\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDead center on the button sits a small round medallion carrying a miniature of Michigan's state coat of arms: an eagle perched at the top, two antlered animals standing on their hind legs holding a plain shield between them, and a curved band underneath too small to carry any lettering. Michigan's real arms give those two supporters different animals, an elk on one side and a moose on the other, but at this size the button's artist drew them as a matching pair. Still a faithful little stab at a big state emblem, shrunk down to fit a button a kid could pin to his shirt.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏛️ Royal Oak, Michigan\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRoyal Oak is a Detroit suburb up in Oakland County that grew up along Woodward Avenue, the same road the Woodward Dream Cruise rolls down every year, and it's home to much of the Detroit Zoo. The name goes back to 1819, when Territorial Governor Lewis Cass was out surveying the area and a big oak tree reminded him of the Royal Oak back in England, the tree Charles II hid in after he lost the Battle of Worcester in 1651. Royal Oak became a village in 1891 and a city in 1921. Here's the part I like: that's the same Lewis Cass who designed Michigan's state coat of arms, the very seal sitting on this badge, adopted in 1835 and patterned after the old Hudson's Bay Company seal, eagle for the United States, elk and moose for Michigan, with mottos too small to read on a button this size, including Tuebor, \"I will defend.\" One man named this town and drew this seal. Not something the badge can take credit for, but a nice thing to know while you're holding it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eRoyal Oak's real police department is older than the city itself. Philip H. Beauvais organized it in 1918, three years before incorporation, while also serving as village manager. Lloyd R. McClintock took over as chief in 1926 at just 24, believed to be the youngest police chief in the country at the time, and Ray C. Hayward held the job for 27 years, from 1936 to 1963. The Auxiliary Police named on this badge are a real, still-active volunteer arm of the department, turning out for special events, crime prevention, and checking on neighbors' houses while folks are away, described as the eyes and ears of the department.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere's no date printed anywhere on this card, but the rest of the family gives it away. The same yellow card carries a New York City button copying the NYPD patch adopted in July 1971 and a San Francisco button copying the patch the SFPD added around 1970, which puts these on the racks in the 1970s. No maker or importer is printed on the card, just JAPAN, small, in the corner. And notice it's plain JAPAN, not \"Made in Occupied Japan.\" After the war, in February 1947, the occupation authorities ordered every Japanese export marked \"Made in Occupied Japan,\" and it wasn't until December 1949 that a simple \"Made in Japan\" or just \"Japan\" was allowed. So that bare JAPAN squares with the 1970s date, too.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🚔 Badges Like This and the Kids Who Wore Them\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBadges like this one didn't just sit on a store rack. Sheriffs handed out tin badges just like it as prizes in their own youth programs. Police departments backed school safety patrols from the 1920s on, putting real belts and badges on real schoolchildren posted at the crosswalk. A kid pinning this on was playing at something that, for other kids, wasn't entirely play.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-indianapolis-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Indianapolis Police Special Toy Badge Pin 🚔 Tin Litho on Card Mid-Century Japan Dime Store NOS\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-sauk-county-wisconsin-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🔴 Sauk County Sheriff's Dept Wisconsin Tin Litho Button on Original Card Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-blair-township-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Blair Township Police Tin Litho Toy Badge 🚔 Native Chief Shield, Township Est. 1839 NOS on Card Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769727922341,"sku":"VAG-7034821804197","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3290470190_f2ve.jpg?v=1785353809"},{"product_id":"vintage-plorham-park-florham-park-nj-police-tin-litho-toy-badge","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Plorham Park NJ Police 🚔 Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge Pin Error Misprint New Old Stock Made in Japan","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWhere Is Plorham Park, New Jersey? 🚨 There's No Such Place as Plorham Park\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/97Q8uT7MIP4\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRead the top of this button close and something's off. It says PLORHAM PARK. Go ahead, look for it on a map — you won't find it, because there's no such place. There's a Florham Park, New Jersey, over in Morris County, and somewhere along the line the F turned into a P and nobody caught it before it went to press. I've got a little stack of these, and every one of them says PLORHAM, so it's not one unlucky button. I like it better that way. A town that never existed, printed over and over, is a pretty good story. They seldom turn up for sale, carded or loose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🦅 What's On the Button\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTin litho, ringed in bright red. Inside a black shield outlined in blue, PLORHAM PARK runs across the top in gold, POLICE sits below it, and three little stars line up underneath that. A pink-and-white eagle spreads its wings almost edge to edge across the middle, and on a small blue shield over its chest sits a tiny red house. Gold lightning bolts zigzag down both sides, and N J sits at the bottom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏡 The Real Florham Park\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat little red house isn't just filler — it's the Little Red Schoolhouse, built in 1866, and it's still the town's icon today: it's on the borough flag, the letterhead, the website, even the first-responder trucks. Whoever drew this button knew the town's symbol, even if they botched the town's name.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFlorham Park itself was incorporated March 9, 1899, carved out of Chatham Township, and the name is a Gilded Age mashup of two big estates. \"Florham\" came from Florence and Hamilton Twombly — Florence Adele Vanderbilt Twombly, a granddaughter of Cornelius Vanderbilt, and her husband Hamilton McKown Twombly — who smashed their first names together for their 840-acre place. Next door sat Brooklake Park, 1,000 acres belonging to Leslie Ward, one of the founders of Prudential Insurance. Squash those two estates together and you get the borough's name. These days Fairleigh Dickinson University's Florham campus sits on part of that old estate ground, and since 2008 the New York Jets have run their headquarters and training camp out of Florham Park too. Not bad company for a button that can't spell the place.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing on this card prints a year, but the family it belongs to tells on itself. The same card in my shop turns up with a New York button copying the NYPD patch that was adopted July 1, 1971, and a San Francisco button copying the SFPD patch added around 1970 — so this whole run was on the racks in the 1970s. The card itself is yellow with a red SPECIAL POLICE BADGE banner up top, and a cartoon motorcycle cop fills the rest: white cap, big goggles, gloved hands on the handlebars, a city skyline behind him. JAPAN is printed small in the corner. It's still sealed in its poly sleeve, just like it came off the rack.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e👮 A Badge in a Kid's Pocket\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBadges like this one weren't just toys sitting on a shelf. Sheriffs handed tin badges just like this out as prizes in their youth programs. Police departments have been putting real belts and real badges on schoolkids since the 1920s too, backing school safety patrols at crosswalks all over the country. This one came from a Japanese tin shop for the dime-store rack, not a supply closet — but it still lived in that same world, the one where a kid wearing a badge on his shirt felt like he'd been trusted with something.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-alamo-texas-deputy-sheriff-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage Tin Litho Deputy Sheriff Badge 🌟 Special Police Toy Pin Alamo Texas Made in Japan 1970s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-mississippi-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Mississippi Highway Patrol Tin Litho Toy Police Badge 🚔 NOS on Special Police Card Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-sauk-county-wisconsin-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🔴 Sauk County Sheriff's Dept Wisconsin Tin Litho Button on Original Card Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769728118949,"sku":"VAG-7034821902501","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3290433850_hjz2.jpg?v=1785353819"},{"product_id":"vintage-phoenix-arizona-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Phoenix Arizona Special Police Toy Badge 🔥 Tin Litho Pinback Button, Japan NOS","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Phoenix Special Police Toy Badges? 🔥 A Phoenix Rising on a Dime-Store Badge\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5zLX5IwSlBE\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis one's a tin litho pinback, round and domed, about an inch and a half across. The rim is navy, a wide yellow border runs inside it in a shield shape, and in the middle a red-and-yellow phoenix spreads its wings over a red crescent of flame on a navy ground. POLICE arcs across the top in red, PHOENIX sits on a banded scroll through the middle, and ARIZONA curves along the bottom in gold. It's still pinned to its yellow card and sealed in its sleeve, just the way it hung on the rack. And they're rare - carded or loose, a Phoenix one just doesn't come up for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe card does its own job of selling the thing. A cartoon motorcycle officer fills most of it — white peaked cap, big goggles, gloved hands on the handlebars, a city skyline sketched in behind him — under a red banner that reads SPECIAL POLICE BADGE. JAPAN is printed small in the corner. That's a toy card doing exactly what a toy card was built to do: catch a kid's eye at the dime store. Most of Japan's tin wind-up and battery toys sold through the five-and-dimes — F.W. Woolworth, Grants, Ben Franklin, J.J. Newberry, G.C. Murphy, McCrory's — or at hardware and grocery stores. A Japanese tin badge on an English-language card is that same export trade in miniature.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🌵 A City Named to Rise Again\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhoever picked a phoenix for this badge picked the right bird - the city is named for one. The Hohokam dug something like 135 miles of canals along the Salt River and then, around 1450, walked away from them. Four hundred years later, in 1867, a Civil War veteran named Jack Swilling looked at those old ditches and figured out what they could still do — he re-dug them through his Swilling Irrigation Canal Company, and a new town started growing in the old one's footprint. It was Darrell Duppa who suggested the name: a city rising from the ruins of the civilization before it. I like that a kid's tin badge, of all things, carries that story on its face. And the name turned out to be a good call. Before the war Phoenix got by on what people called the Five C's — cotton, citrus, cattle, climate and copper. Then Motorola picked it for a new military electronics research center in 1948, air conditioning made the summers bearable, and the city went from about 107,000 people in 1950 to more than 439,000 in 1960. General Electric and Sperry Rand had plants there by 1960 too, and Phoenix became a textbook case of the postwar Sun Belt boom. It really did rise, and it was still rising when these cards were made.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e👮 The Real Phoenix Police\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe department this badge borrows its name from goes back to the city's incorporation on February 5, 1881, when Henry Garfias — born Enrique Garfias, 1851 to 1896 — was elected the city's first marshal and held the job six years. In the early 1900s a horse named Old Nelly pulled the patrol wagon while most of the force still walked their beats, and the whole city was only 3.1 square miles and about 11,134 people, watched over with call boxes and a system of horns and flashing lights. The department reorganized in 1950 into Traffic, Detectives, Patrol and Service, and an officer back then put in a 44-hour week for $288 a month. In March 1963 two Phoenix detectives, Carroll Cooley and Wilfred Young, arrested a man named Ernesto Miranda, and his case went all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court; the 1966 ruling in \u003cem\u003eMiranda v. Arizona\u003c\/em\u003e is why officers everywhere read people their rights. The department put its first helicopter in the air in 1974. The Phoenix Police Museum keeps that history today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing on the card gives a date, but the family it belongs to does. The same card carries a New York button copying the NYPD patch adopted July 1, 1971, and a San Francisco button copying the SFPD patch added around 1970 — which puts this whole run of cards in the 1970s. No maker or importer is printed anywhere on it, just JAPAN.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e👮 Junior Deputies, Safety Patrols, and the World This Badge Lived In\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a real history standing behind every mid-century toy badge. This was the era of the junior deputy and the school safety patrol: sheriffs' offices swore children in as honorary junior deputies at fairs and school assemblies, safety patrol programs — running strong since the 1920s — pinned badges on generations of schoolchildren, and a visit from an officer with badges to hand out was a fixture of American civic childhood. A Phoenix Special Police badge belonged to that world. When a child pinned one on, the game borrowed its seriousness from programs that were entirely real — and that is part of the history a survivor like this one still carries. Sheriffs gave tin badges just like this one out as prizes in their youth programs, too.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-laurens-county-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🌟 Laurens County Sheriff's Dept — 1960s-1970s Japan, Original Card\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1970s-nypd-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1970s NYPD Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho Pinback Button on Card New York City New Old Stock Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-florida-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Florida Highway Patrol 🍊 Special Police Toy Badge Pin NOS Carded Tin Litho Made in Japan Mid-Century\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769728348325,"sku":"VAG-7034821968037","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3337615741_gux9.jpg?v=1785353828"},{"product_id":"vintage-mississippi-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Mississippi Highway Patrol Tin Litho Toy Police Badge 🚔 NOS on Special Police Card Made in Japan","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Mississippi Highway Patrol Toy Badges? 🚔 Mississippi Highway Patrol, Pressed in Tin\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/28aS59OYOS0\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a little tin litho pinback button, still riding its yellow dime-store card and still sealed under its sleeve. A red banner across the top of the card reads SPECIAL POLICE BADGE, and off to the right sits the button itself: a navy shield outlined in red, MISSISSIPPI across the top and HIGHWAY PATROL underneath it in gold, a gold eagle at the center holding branches in its talons over a striped red-white-and-blue shield with stars, and VIRTUTE ET ARMIS curving along the bottom. It's a toy, made for a kid's shirt pocket, not a trooper's - and it's a good one. And they're rare - carded or loose, a Mississippi Highway Patrol one just doesn't come up for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏍️ The Card Tells Its Own Story\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLook at the card first, because it earns the look. A cartoon motorcycle officer fills the left side in a white peaked cap and big motorcycle goggles, gloved hands on the handlebars, a city skyline washed in behind him. Down in the corner it just says JAPAN, small and plain.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🦅 What the Badge Says\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe button itself is round, with a bright yellow band and a red rim around that navy shield. MISSISSIPPI HIGHWAY PATROL is lettered in gold across it, and in the middle stands the gold eagle, wings out, a red-white-and-blue striped shield with stars across its breast, branches held in its talons. VIRTUTE ET ARMIS runs along the bottom edge - Latin for \u003cem\u003e\"By valor and arms.\"\u003c\/em\u003e That's not a phrase somebody dreamed up for a toy. It's Mississippi's own state motto, and the eagle-and-shield design echoes the state's own coat of arms.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏛️ Where the Motto Comes From\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMississippi adopted its coat of arms on February 7, 1894 - a gold eagle on a blue shield, a palm branch and a bundle of arrows, cotton stalks, and VIRTUTE ET ARMIS on a red scroll underneath. The motto may have been suggested by the motto of Lord Gray de Wilton. The law establishing the coat of arms got left out of the state's 1906 code, and it took a state supreme court ruling in May 2000 - finding Mississippi had no official coat of arms on the books - before Governor Ronnie Musgrove re-designated it, on that same date, February 7, 2001. The eagle and the motto on this little badge are older than the patrol that wears them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🚓 The Real Patrol Behind the Name\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Mississippi Highway Patrol itself started in 1938. Senate Bill 161 signed it into law on April 1 of that year, setting up the Mississippi Highway Safety Patrol to enforce traffic laws on the state and federal highways, and its first troopers rode out on motorcycles. Governor Hugh L. White signed the bill; Major Thomas Butler Birdsong was the first commissioner and Captain Webb Burke the first chief of patrol. Fifty-three troopers came out of the training camp at Camp Shelby, paraded to Jackson and down Capitol Street past the governor, and were sworn in on June 16, 1938; the following Monday they reported to their stations. The original 1938 patch was oval, almost round, with HIGHWAY SAFETY PATROL in gold around the top, the state seal in the center, and VIRTUTE ET ARMIS in a red scroll around the bottom - the same motto, still doing its job decades later on a dime-store toy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing on this card carries a date, but the family it belongs to gives it away. The same yellow card was printed with a New York button copying the NYPD patch adopted July 1, 1971, and a San Francisco button copying the patch the SFPD added around 1970 - so this whole run of cards was on the racks in the 1970s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCollectors of Made-in-Japan tin love to tell how toys like this one grew out of Japan's rebuilding after the war, and there's real history under that story. During General MacArthur's occupation the American military helped put Japan's toy makers back in business - the occupation government even got them subsidized American steel for tinplate - and the story goes that the toy designers often worked from tin cans the occupying troops left behind. From the late 1940s into the early 1960s those toys went out by the shipload, most of them to the United States. The occupation itself ended in 1952, well before these cards were on the racks, but this one comes out of that same trade: a little Japanese tin badge made for an American kid.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🎖️ Kids and Badges\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBadges like this one had real company. Sheriffs handed out tin badges just like it as prizes in their youth programs. And from the 1920s on, police departments backed school safety patrols, putting real belts and real badges on real schoolchildren long before this toy ever left a factory. This little Mississippi badge was made for that same world - a kid's badge, worn with a kid's pride.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-sauk-county-wisconsin-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🔴 Sauk County Sheriff's Dept Wisconsin Tin Litho Button on Original Card Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-plorham-park-florham-park-nj-police-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Plorham Park NJ Police 🚔 Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge Pin Error Misprint New Old Stock Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-wyoming-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1970s Wyoming Highway Patrol 🦬 Special Police Tin Litho Toy Badge New Old Stock Original Card Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769729527973,"sku":"VAG-7034822164645","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3337495395_dbin.jpg?v=1785353846"},{"product_id":"vintage-1970s-nypd-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1970s NYPD Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho Pinback Button on Card New York City New Old Stock Made in Japan","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember NYPD Special Police Toy Badges? 🚔 A sunny little toy wearing the patch of the most talked-about police force of the 1970s\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/IcffkUeYHzc\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eOn the card, everything is cheerful: a cartoon motorcycle cop in a white peaked cap and dark goggles, gloved hands on the bars, a pale city skyline behind him, and a red banner that reads SPECIAL POLICE BADGE. Beside him sits a bright red tin button carrying the shoulder patch of the Police Department of the City of New York — a patch the department adopted on July 1, 1971. In the years this Japanese dime-store toy hung on the racks for a kid's pocket money, the real NYPD was living through the most scrutinized stretch in its history: a five-day \"blue flu\" walkout, the Knapp Commission hearings, Frank Serpico, The French Connection, and the \"Fear City\" layoffs of 1975. The card never mentions any of it. That is exactly why the story belongs here. A loose one turns up now and then; still on its card like this, it's a rare one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWhat is printed on the card and the button\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a tin lithograph pinback toy badge, new old stock, still on its original illustrated display card inside a clear sleeve. The card is a yellow field with a red header panel lettered SPECIAL POLICE BADGE. The artwork is a motorcycle officer drawn in a bold comic-book style: white peaked cap with a cap badge, heavy goggles, navy tunic and tie, olive-green gauntlets, and the chrome headlamps of his machine in the foreground, with a ghosted skyline of towers behind. JAPAN is printed small in the lower right corner.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe button has a red rim framing a navy shield edged in orange. POLICE DEPARTMENT arcs across the top in white capitals, and CITY OF NEW YORK runs down both lower edges. Inside, on a light-blue ground, sits an orange device: the scales of justice at the top, a white band of five navy stars across the middle, and below it the seal of the City of New York — the eagle and the two standing figures on either side of the shield. Tin lithography means the color was printed onto flat sheet tin before the metal was pressed into shape, which is why so much detail sits so crisp on so small a piece.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e⚖️ The patch it copies, and why that makes it a 1970s piece\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe New York City Police Department adopted its uniform shoulder patch on July 1, 1971. Officers wore it on the right sleeve only until 1991, when it went on both arms. By the department's own account the five stars stand for the five boroughs — Manhattan, Brooklyn, Queens, the Bronx and Staten Island, consolidated into Greater New York in 1898 — and the scales of justice stand for the department itself. The center borrows the city seal: a bald eagle above a shield of windmill sails, beavers and flour barrels, supported by a sailor on one side and a Lenape man on the other.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA copy cannot be older than its original, so this button was printed no earlier than the summer of 1971. That puts it in the 1970s, near the very end of the long run of dime-store tin stamped JAPAN.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe patch had ancestors. In April 1904 Commissioner William McAdoo ordered patrolmen to wear an embroidered emblem on the left sleeve — a yellow wheel with a brown horse's head, bought by each man for sixty-five cents and first worn at the Annual Police Parade on May 6, 1905. Collectors call it the \"wheel-horse.\" Around 1923 or 1924 the NYPD Motorcycle Squad took up an arrow-and-wheel version for its riders — the same kind of goggled motorcycle man drawn on this card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe colors carry history too. Orange, white and blue came into the flag New York adopted in 1915 from the Prince's Flag of the Dutch Republic that flew over New Amsterdam. The beavers on the seal stand for the Dutch West India Company and its fur trade; the flour barrels and windmill sails remember the milling monopoly that made the early port prosperous. Even the seal's own date was fought over in the same decade as this toy: in 1977 City Council President Paul O'Dwyer, born in Ireland, had it changed from 1664, the year the English took the town, to 1625, the founding of New Amsterdam.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗽 New York, 1971 to 1975: the decade behind the crest\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe patch arrived in a hard year. From January 14 to 19, 1971, roughly 20,000 NYPD officers called in sick — the \"blue flu,\" a way around the state's Taylor Law ban on police strikes — after a court threw out the Sergeants Benevolent Association's back-pay suit and Knapp Commission subpoenas began landing. For five days the department fielded about 15 percent of its usual force. Each officer who took part was later fined about $417.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMayor John Lindsay had appointed that commission in May 1970, after officers Frank Serpico and David Durk took their evidence of payoffs to The New York Times. Public hearings opened on October 19, 1971; Serpico testified that December, and the final report of December 1972 described corruption running through the ranks. Hollywood was already there. The French Connection, drawn from the real case of narcotics detectives Eddie Egan and Sonny Grosso, won Best Picture in April 1972, and Sidney Lumet's Serpico, with Al Pacino, opened in New York on December 5, 1973.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen the money ran out. When the city's new fiscal year began on July 1, 1975 — four years to the day after the patch was adopted — about 5,000 officers were laid off. The police unions answered with at least a million copies of a \"Fear City\" pamphlet, subtitled \"A Survival Guide for Visitors to the City of New York,\" with a hooded skull on the cover and nine rules for staying safe. City Hall called it \"a new low in irresponsibility\" and went to court to stop it; a judge let it run on free-speech grounds. Uniformed strength, above 31,000 early in the decade, was down to about 22,600 by 1980.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNone of that reached the card. The toy shows the city's cop the way a kid wanted to see him — goggles down, skyline behind, riding out. The distance between that bright cardboard and the headlines of its day is the history a small button like this carries without saying a word.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e⭐ Kid cops: the Junior Police, and the badge as a prize\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNew York put badges and uniforms on children long before this toy. In 1914 Commissioner Arthur Woods began closing off city blocks as \"play streets\" for tenement kids, and John Sweeney, a captain in the Lower East Side's 15th precinct, founded the Junior Police — boys in uniform, drilling in formation under a police-style chain of command, with a handbook aimed at \"developing a feeling of civic responsibility.\" At its peak 22 precincts ran the program for more than 4,000 boys. In 1936 Commissioner Lewis J. Valentine reorganized it as the Police Athletic League, and a Junior Police Club still meets inside PAL's after-school programs today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe tradition reached well past New York. Sheriffs running youth programs handed out tin-litho toy badges like this one as prizes, and for the kid who won one, a badge from a grown-up in uniform was an honor — even when it came off a dime-store card with JAPAN in the corner.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎌 Made in Japan, at the end of the tin era\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Japanese tin toy grew out of postwar rebuilding. Exports carried the \"Occupied Japan\" mark until 1952, and the golden age of Japanese tin ran roughly from 1952 to 1962, when Japan made nearly all of the world's battery-operated toys and makers such as Alps sold across America through importers. Shoppers found them at Woolworth, W.T. Grant, Ben Franklin, J.J. Newberry, G.C. Murphy and McCrory's.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBy the time this button was printed, that world was closing. Plastic was replacing tin, Japanese wages were climbing, and toy-safety rules were tightening, so the work moved to Hong Kong and Taiwan. On August 15, 1971, President Nixon cut the dollar loose from gold, and that December the yen was revalued upward by 16.9 percent, making Japanese goods dearer on American shelves. A tin badge marked JAPAN that copies a 1971 patch comes from the closing chapter of that long run.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-laurens-county-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🌟 Laurens County Sheriff's Dept — 1960s-1970s Japan, Original Card\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-phoenix-arizona-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Phoenix Arizona Special Police Toy Badge 🔥 Tin Litho Pinback Button, Japan NOS\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-lee-county-georgia-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Lee County Georgia Sheriff Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge Pin 🚔 New Old Stock on Card\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769730511013,"sku":"VAG-7034822361253","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3289618734_h4gh.jpg?v=1785353855"},{"product_id":"vintage-hancock-county-tennessee-sheriffs-melungeons-tin-litho-toy-badge","title":"Vintage Hancock County TN Sheriffs Dept Tin Litho Toy Pinback Button 🚔 Home of the Melungeons Bicentennial 1776 1976 Japan","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWho Was Sheriff of Hancock County, Tennessee? 🦅 Hancock County, Packed Onto One Little Button\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5qJqpyOfokc\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis one's a tin litho pinback on its original yellow \"SPECIAL POLICE BADGE\" card, sealed in its sleeve just the way it hung on the rack. The button itself runs about an inch and a half across, same as the rest of this card family, and it's not some blank \"Special Police\" stamp with a town name dropped in. A green eagle spreads its wings over a pair of crossed flags - the Stars and Stripes and Tennessee's own three-star flag - inside a shield that reads HANCOCK COUNTY across the top and SHERIFFS DEPT below. A red ribbon wraps the bottom and says it outright: HOME OF THE MELUNGEONS. Not bad for a dime-store toy. They seldom turn up for sale, carded or loose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🛡️ A Toy Copying a Real Patch\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat ribbon isn't the artist's own idea. Hancock County's actual sheriff and deputies wore a shoulder patch reading \"Home of the Melungeons,\" and this button is doing exactly what the rest of this card's badges do - copying a real emblem, wording and all. Look at the small medallion the eagle is perched on, right where the two flagstaffs meet, and you'll see WALK TOWARD THE SUNSET lettered around a red ring, with two dates stacked inside it: 1776 in black, 1976 in red right underneath. That's the Bicentennial pairing, the country's 200th birthday, worked right into the sheriff's emblem.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🌄 Sneedville and the Drama That Named It\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWalk Toward the Sunset was a real outdoor drama, staged outside Sneedville - the Hancock County seat - starting in 1969, and it closed for good after its 1976 season once the crowds got too thin to keep it running. Kermit Hunter wrote it, a man who turned out more than forty outdoor dramas for towns across the South, from Cherokee, North Carolina to Tahlequah, Oklahoma to Beckley and Boone. County leaders brought him in hoping the show would pull in tourists and jobs - this was, in the 1960s, the eighth-poorest county in the entire country, its population cut nearly in half over the previous hundred years. Not everyone welcomed the spotlight on the county's Melungeon heritage; a bomb threat kept volunteers up all night guarding the new amphitheater before opening night ever happened. The show went on anyway, and it turned \"Melungeon\" - once slung as an insult - into something the county could put on a marquee.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd this is Appalachia through and through. They built the drama's stage at the foot of Newman's Ridge, the old stomping grounds of the Melungeon families. Wayne Winkler, who wrote Walking Toward the Sunset: The Melungeons of Appalachia and a whole book on the drama itself, calls the Melungeon story \"Appalachian concentrate\" - in their small story you can see the bigger story of Appalachia as a whole. I like thinking of this little button that way: a whole mountain county's story, pressed onto about an inch and a half of tin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWho the Melungeons actually are has been argued over for longer than the drama ran. The earliest known use of the word turns up in a Baptist church's minutes in Scott County, Virginia, in 1813. Historians don't agree on where the community came from: a 1950 study traced them to free people of color who moved into Hancock County from the Virginia-North Carolina piedmont in the late 1700s and early 1800s, mixed European, African, and Native American; a 1994 book argued for Moorish and Turkish refugees of the 1500s; a 1969 study makes the case for a mostly English background with some African or Cherokee roots, maybe both, and possibly Portuguese too. The community itself is real, rooted around Newman's Ridge, where the Vardy Community School once taught Melungeon children. The county was carved out of Hawkins and Claiborne counties in 1844 and named for John Hancock - Hawkins sued over it, but the state supreme court upheld the new county in 1848 - and named its seat, Sneedville, after William H. Sneed, the lawyer who argued that case.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere's no year printed anywhere on the card itself, but the rest of the family gives it away. The same yellow card carries a New York button copying the NYPD patch adopted in July 1971 and a San Francisco button copying a patch the SFPD started using around 1970 - so these were on the racks in the 1970s, same as the rest of this set.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🚔 Badges Like This Weren't Just Toys\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSheriffs really did hand out tin badges just like this one as prizes in their youth programs - that's not particular to this county, just how it worked back then. Police departments also backed school safety patrols starting in the 1920s, putting belts and badges on schoolchildren all over the country. A card like this one landed in some kid's hands somewhere in that world, and for a minute, a tin button made them somebody.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-phoenix-arizona-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Phoenix Arizona Special Police Toy Badge 🔥 Tin Litho Pinback Button, Japan NOS\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-lee-county-georgia-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Lee County Georgia Sheriff Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge Pin 🚔 New Old Stock on Card\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-department-of-defense-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Department of Defense DOD Eagle Seal Pinback Made in Japan 1960s-1970s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769731854501,"sku":"VAG-7034822590629","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3335968277_m8nl.jpg?v=1785353864"},{"product_id":"vintage-commonwealth-of-massachusetts-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Commonwealth of Massachusetts Tin Litho New Old Stock on Original Card","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWho Carried a Toy Massachusetts Police Badge? 🚔 Vintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Tin Litho Badge\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/4qYdLBuX0to\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eA Massachusetts police badge that never went near a police station.\u003c\/strong\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a dime-store toy, and that is the whole charm of it. A Special Police badge in bright tin lithography, COMM. OF MASSACHUSETTS ringed around its center and POLICE across a gold ribbon, still on the illustrated card it was sold on, with JAPAN printed in the corner. A kid could own one for pocket change, and sheriffs gave badges like it away to children as prizes. It borrows the look of a real Massachusetts shield, an eagle on top and the Commonwealth at the heart, and it came out of Japan's toy export trade in the 1960s-1970s, near the end of the years when Japan made the world's toys. Tin litho badges carrying a town or state name are rare today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eThe Badge and Its Card\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe badge is a round printed-tin button with a thick plastic back, lettered COMM. OF MASSACHUSETTS around a small shield, with POLICE on a ribbon below and an eagle across the top. They are very well made and they look amazing in hand.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe card is a small piece of commercial art on its own. A red header reads SPECIAL POLICE BADGE in white capitals. Below, on a bright yellow ground, a motorcycle officer rides out of the frame in a white peaked cap, dark riding goggles, a navy uniform with a tie and olive gloves on the handlebars, a big chrome headlamp in front of him and a pale city skyline behind. JAPAN is printed at the lower right, under the badge. The whole card still sits in its clear sleeve.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eType: toy Special Police badge on its original display card\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePrinted on the badge: COMM. OF MASSACHUSETTS, POLICE\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003ePrinted on the card: SPECIAL POLICE BADGE, JAPAN\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eConstruction: tin lithography front, thick plastic back\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBadge: 1 1\/2\" ~\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCard: 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAge: 1960s-1970s\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eCondition: New Old Stock, still on the original card in its clear sleeve\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eMade in Japan: The Tin Toy Trade\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJapan's postwar toy business has a founding story that collectors love to tell, and it is true. In 1945, just after the surrender, the toolmaker Matsuzo Kosuge took empty food cans scavenged from American military bases and hammered the tin over wooden forms into a little U.S. Army jeep, a few inches long, painted by hand and driven by a rubber band. It was one of the first manufactured goods of any kind on sale in Japan that year, and it sold. Within a few years tinplate toys were one of the country's best exports, and sales abroad helped put the Japanese economy back on its feet. Japan's postwar tin toys sold mostly through five-and-dime chains such as F. W. Woolworth, Ben Franklin, McCrory's, J. J. Newberry and G. C. Murphy. The part of that story I like best is the round trip: the early toys were so often made from empty American food cans that the tin crossed the Pacific twice, once full of food and once as a toy headed for an American kid.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUnder the Allied occupation run by General Douglas MacArthur, headquarters ordered in February 1947 that goods made for export be marked \"Occupied Japan\" or \"Made in Occupied Japan\". A 1949 directive allowed \"Made in Japan\" or simply \"Japan\" where space was short. The occupation ended on April 28, 1952, the day the peace treaty signed by 49 nations at the War Memorial Opera House in San Francisco the September before finally took effect. After that, \"Made in Japan\", or just JAPAN like on this card, was the usual mark, and the decade that followed was the golden age: by one count Japan made 95 percent of the world's battery-operated toys.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen the ground shifted. Plastics, rising wages and new safety rules pushed toy making toward Taiwan, Hong Kong and later China. In August 1971 President Richard Nixon ended the dollar's convertibility to gold and put a 10 percent surcharge on imports, and the Smithsonian Agreement at the end of that year raised the yen 16.88 percent, to 308 to the dollar. By 1972 Hong Kong had overtaken Japan as the world's biggest toy exporter. A badge on a card printed JAPAN is a small piece of that closing chapter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eThe Commonwealth on a Toy\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCOMM. is short for Commonwealth. Massachusetts is one of four American states that call themselves a commonwealth, along with Kentucky, Pennsylvania and Virginia. Real Massachusetts police shields carry the state seal at the center, and this toy copies that arrangement: eagle above, Commonwealth in the middle, the word POLICE on a ribbon below.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe seal behind that layout is one of the oldest emblems in the country. The Massachusetts Bay Colony's seal of 1629 showed a Native man with the words \"Come over and help us\". In 1775 the revolutionary government replaced him with a minuteman holding a sword and Magna Carta. On December 13, 1780, the new Commonwealth adopted the design of Nathan Cushing under Governor John Hancock: a Native figure holding his arrow pointed down in peace, a silver star for Massachusetts as one of the United States, and a crest of an arm raising a broadsword. The motto, Ense petit placidam sub libertate quietem, \"By the sword we seek peace, but peace only under liberty\", is drawn from the writing of the English soldier and politician Algernon Sidney around 1659. In 1898 the artist Edmund H. Garrett drew the version still in use.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat seal has been argued over ever since it was made, and in 2021 Governor Charlie Baker signed a law creating a commission to redesign the state's seal and flag.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eSpecial Police, the Real Ones\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Special police officer\" is a working title in Massachusetts, not a toy-maker's invention. Municipal chiefs can appoint retired officers with long service as special police officers to work police details, some towns use the title for reserve and part-time officers, and Boston has special officers working for city departments and private security companies. The card borrows the phrase for play. The badge carries no department, no number and no authority.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eLore: When Kids Really Did Get Badges\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe childhood this badge comes from was full of badges handed to kids by real officers. Sheriffs used tin litho badges like this one as prizes in their youth programs. Junior deputy programs let sheriffs swear in schoolchildren as honorary deputies, school safety patrols, organized since the 1920s, put badges and belts on millions of children, and police departments handed out badges at parades, fairs and classroom visits as a matter of civic routine. A Massachusetts Special Police badge on a dime-store card was the one a kid could buy for himself.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1970s-san-francisco-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s San Francisco Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho Button Pin New Old Stock Japan Original Card Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-laurens-county-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🌟 Laurens County Sheriff's Dept — 1960s-1970s Japan, Original Card\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-wyoming-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1970s Wyoming Highway Patrol 🦬 Special Police Tin Litho Toy Badge New Old Stock Original Card Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769732313253,"sku":"VAG-7034822787237","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3335952563_f5f8.jpg?v=1785353874"},{"product_id":"vintage-1970s-san-francisco-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s San Francisco Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho Button Pin New Old Stock Japan Original Card Collectible","description":"\u003ch2\u003eHow Does a San Francisco Police Toy Badge Date Itself? A San Francisco Police Toy Badge That Dates Itself by Its Phoenix 🚔\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/LFc7eF4iWRQ\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eLook at the bird. The shield printed on this little tin litho button is not a toy-factory invention. It is the San Francisco Police Department's shoulder patch — the phoenix rising from flame, the motto on its ribbon, SAN FRANCISCO arched over the top — and the SFPD did not sew that patch onto a uniform until 1970. The design itself was approved in 1969. So this carded Special Police badge, printed in Japan for the American five-and-dime counter, can be no older than the patch it copies: a 1970s piece from the last years of the Japanese tin toy trade, still on its original card as New Old Stock, carrying a San Francisco legend that goes back to 1852. And they're rare - carded or loose, a San Francisco one just doesn't come up for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWhat Is on the Card and the Button\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe display card measures 4 x 2.25 inches. A red band across the top reads SPECIAL POLICE BADGE in white capitals. Beneath it, on a golden-yellow ground, a cartoon motorcycle officer rides in front of a pale city skyline: white peaked cap with a cap badge, riding goggles pulled down over his eyes, a strap under his chin, dark uniform and tie, green gloves on the handlebars and a big round headlamp at the bottom edge. Small capitals in the lower right corner say JAPAN.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe button is 1.5 inches across. A red rim and a black ring frame a yellow-outlined shield on a deep purple-blue field. SAN FRANCISCO arches across the top with POLICE beneath it, and a white-headed phoenix spreads red and yellow wings over a burst of red and yellow flame. A two-part ribbon at the bottom reads OROENPAZ FERRO on the upper scroll and EN GUERRA on the lower one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eRead that ribbon closely. The city spells its motto \u003cem\u003eOro en paz, fierro en guerra\u003c\/em\u003e. The button runs the first three words together and prints FERRO where the patch says FIERRO — a spelling that belongs to the toy, not to the department. The rider on the card wears no city name at all; the card leaves the town to the button.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eThe Patch It Copies: the SFPD in 1969 and 1970\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe San Francisco Police Department began operations on August 13, 1849, in the thick of the gold rush, under Captain Malachi Fallon, who commanded one deputy captain, three sergeants and thirty officers in a city filling up with fortune hunters. For its first 120 years the department went without a shoulder patch. An officer's badge was, and still is, a sterling silver seven-point star, of a design basically unchanged since 1849.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThose stars were made at home in San Francisco, California, by jewelers and badge makers. Surviving SFPD stars in sterling silver carry the name of Irvine \u0026amp; Jachens of Market Street, with issue dates on the reverse such as 1913, 1915 and 1921; others were made by the Albert S. Samuels Co. Jewelers and by Morgen Jeweler.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe cloth patch arrived in 1969, when the department approved a design built from the city's crest, the phoenix and the motto. In 1970 it went onto both sleeves of the uniform. That is the image on this button. The toy leaves the silver star alone and copies the patch on the sleeve instead.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eGold in Peace, Iron in War: Where the Motto Came From\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe motto belonged to the City and County of San Francisco long before it belonged to the police. It sits on the city seal adopted by the Board of Supervisors in 1859, which replaced a similar seal adopted seven years earlier. Where the words came from is a matter of legend, and two stories are told. One reads the 1859 date as a city bracing for the Civil War. The other traces the phrase to Cervantes — to Don Quixote and his instructions to Sancho Panza.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn January 1900 Mayor James Duval Phelan, a banker and art patron who served from 1897 to 1902, recommended that the city adopt a flag carrying the motto. More than a hundred designs came in, and artist John M. Gamble's won: a phoenix rising from flames, with the Spanish words on a black ribbon beneath. Phelan explained the words himself: \"Gold is emblematic of the abundance of nature, and iron of the fortitude and courage of men.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eWhy a Phoenix: the City That Kept Burning\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt is often assumed that the phoenix stands for the 1906 earthquake. The bird is half a century older than that. Between December 24, 1849 and June 22, 1851, gold-rush San Francisco burned again and again — six great fires in the count most often told, seven severe ones in others. The worst began on May 3, 1851 and destroyed about 2,000 buildings, roughly three-quarters of the city, with losses of $10 to $12 million, much of it uninsured because no insurance company yet did business there. The town rebuilt every time, and in 1852 the phoenix went onto its first city seal.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThat is the legend this button carries in an inch and a half of printed metal: a boomtown that kept rising out of its own ashes, and a bird that became the emblem of the city, then of its flag in 1900, then of every police sleeve in 1970.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eThe Goggled Rider and San Francisco's Solos\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe cartoon officer on the card is pure toy-counter adventure, goggles down and gloves on. Those black-rimmed goggles read almost like a domino mask, the same band across the eyes that Zorro, the Lone Ranger and the Green Hornet wore, and I think that's half his charm. That jutting jaw and sharp nose could have walked right out of Dick Tracy, too — Chester Gould drew that strip for the newspaper comics from 1931 until he retired at the end of 1977. San Francisco had the real thing early. The SFPD formed a motorcycle squad in 1909 for \"stopping scorchers\" — speeding bicyclists — and reckless drivers, and the unit has grown ever since. Its riders are still called Solos, because they patrol alone.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eMade in Japan: the Tin Toy Trade Behind the Badge\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe small JAPAN on the card is a chapter of history by itself. Japan was under Allied occupation from 1945 to 1952, with General Douglas MacArthur in command as Supreme Commander for the Allied Powers until 1951. In February 1947 his headquarters ordered every Japanese export marked \"Made in Occupied Japan.\" That order was repealed at the end of 1949, though some makers kept stamping it until 1951. Postwar agreements let Japan build a strong foothold in the American market, and tin toys were one of the ways it did it: flat sheet tin printed in full color by offset lithography, then stamped and formed into cars, robots, clickers and badges. Because the color is printed into the metal rather than painted on afterward, tin litho pieces keep their crisp graphics.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCollectors put the heyday of Japanese tin toys at roughly 1952 to 1962. After that, plastic became the material of choice, labor costs rose in a prospering Japan, safety rules tightened, and cheap toy making moved on to Hong Kong and Taiwan. That shift is what makes a 1970s tin litho badge on a JAPAN card worth a second look: it is a late product of an industry that was already giving way to plastic.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eFive-and-Dime Counters and Sheriffs' Prizes\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eCarded tin badges like this one sold for pocket change through the variety-store chains — the F. W. Woolworth Company, the S. S. Kresge Company, Ben Franklin stores — and through thousands of independent five-and-dimes. For a child, a badge with a real city's name and emblem on it was authority you could pin to your shirt. And what a city to pin on: cable cars, Chinatown, Fisherman's Wharf, and Alcatraz out in the bay in plain view of the shore — a federal prison until 1963, open to visitors from 1973.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThey did a second job, too. Sheriffs handed tin litho badges like these out as prizes in youth programs, part of the same world in which AAA clubs began organizing School Safety Patrols in the 1920s and millions of schoolchildren wore belts and badges to walk younger classmates across the street.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003eThe Lore of the Rice-Paper Master Cases\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA dealer who sold off a retiring friend's old store stock of carded Japanese Special Police badges described how they had come packed: the master cases were old rice paper, and the cases too were marked Made in Japan. Wholesale boxes of six dozen, 72 carded Special Police badges to a box with box, cards and badges all marked Japan, still surface now and then. It is the picture collectors carry of how these little badges crossed the Pacific on their way to an American counter.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-herb-cooper-special-security-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Herb Cooper Special Security Patrol Pin — Made in Japan, 1960s-1970s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-commonwealth-of-massachusetts-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Commonwealth of Massachusetts Tin Litho New Old Stock on Original Card\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-abilene-texas-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Abilene Police Special Police Toy Badge 🦅 Tin Litho Pin-Back Button NOS Japan Card Mid-Century\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769732804773,"sku":"VAG-7034822918309","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3288215008_2r2d.jpg?v=1785353883"},{"product_id":"vintage-florida-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Florida Highway Patrol 🍊 Special Police Toy Badge Pin NOS Carded Tin Litho Made in Japan Mid-Century","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Florida Highway Patrol Toy Badges? 🚔 A Toy Badge Off the Dime-Store Rack\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/K5vaamlbOTE\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a 1970s tin litho toy badge, still sealed to its original card the way it hung on the rack. The card is yellow, with a red banner across the top reading \u003cstrong\u003eSPECIAL POLICE BADGE\u003c\/strong\u003e and a cartoon motorcycle cop leaning over his handlebars in a white cap and a pair of big goggles, a city skyline sketched in behind him. Down in the corner, small, it just says \u003cstrong\u003eJAPAN\u003c\/strong\u003e. That's where these little tin badges were made, for the American dime-store trade. After World War II, Japan's toy makers were put back to work turning out the cheap, labor-heavy goods American companies wanted to import and sell, and by the end of the 1950s Japan was a tin-toy powerhouse. Plastic took over most of the toy aisle in the '60s, but little tin badges like this one kept right on coming. And they're rare - carded or loose, a Florida Highway Patrol one just doesn't come up for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe button itself is round tin: a bright yellow ring around a navy field, \u003cstrong\u003eHIGHWAY\u003c\/strong\u003e arcing over the top and \u003cstrong\u003ePATROL\u003c\/strong\u003e along the bottom in yellow letters, and right in the center a red-orange orange with a couple of green leaves, \u003cstrong\u003eFLORIDA\u003c\/strong\u003e lettered straight across the fruit. It's a toy, made for a kid's shirt pocket, and it plays that part well.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🍊 Why There's an Orange on a Police Badge\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat orange in the middle is right at home. The real Florida Highway Patrol has worn orange since its very first day - orange bands on the troopers' gray Stetsons and an orange-and-blue patch on the shoulder - and in the state that grows them, what else would you put on the badge? By 1943 the patch on a trooper's left shoulder was an orange emblem with the word Florida spelled out - the very thing this little button carries front and center.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🚓 The Real Florida Highway Patrol\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe badge on this button is a toy, but the agency it copies is real. The Florida Legislature created the Florida Highway Patrol in 1939, under a new Department of Public Safety. W.F. Reid came on as director on October 1, H.N. Kirkman was made captain of the patrol - he led it until he retired in 1970, and troopers still call him its father - and on November 1 the first training school opened in Bradenton with 40 students at the Manavista Hotel. On December 6, 1939, Secretary of State R.A. Gray swore in the 32 who graduated. Kirkman - Colonel H. Neil Kirkman, in full - was an old Army man who had first gone in as a private in 1917. In 1945 he was elected director of the whole Department of Public Safety and held that job for 24 years, and I like this detail: the day he retired, February 11, 1970, happened to be his 78th birthday. Their uniform was forest green whipcord, with orange bands on a gray Stetson campaign hat and a black Sam Browne belt, plus an orange-and-blue shoulder patch, FHP lettered on the left lapel and a winged wheel on the right. That original wheel had a broken spoke in it, which is where the Patrol's own \u003cstrong\u003eBroken Spoke Club\u003c\/strong\u003e got its name. The whole look was patterned after the New York State Police.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere's no date printed on the card, but the family it belongs to gives it away. The same card design turns up with a New York City button copying the NYPD patch adopted in July 1971, and a San Francisco button copying the patch the SFPD added around 1970 - so these were on the racks in the 1970s. The button itself runs about an inch and a half across; the card is 4 by 2.25 inches.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🚔 The Real Junior Programs Behind Badges Like This\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a real history standing behind every mid-century toy badge. This was the era of the junior deputy and the school safety patrol: sheriffs' offices swore children in as honorary junior deputies at fairs and school assemblies, safety patrol programs — running strong since the 1920s — pinned badges on generations of schoolchildren, and a visit from an officer with badges to hand out was a fixture of American civic childhood. Sheriffs gave tin badges just like this one out as prizes in their youth programs, too. A Florida Highway Patrol badge belonged to that world. When a child pinned one on, the game borrowed its seriousness from programs that were entirely real — and that is part of the history a survivor like this one still carries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-sheridan-wyoming-chief-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Sheridan Wyoming Chief Special Police 🦅 Tin Litho Toy Badge Original NOS Card Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-abilene-texas-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Abilene Police Special Police Toy Badge 🦅 Tin Litho Pin-Back Button NOS Japan Card Mid-Century\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-woodbury-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Woodbury Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho on Original Pin, NOS Japan Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769733591205,"sku":"VAG-7034823114917","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3286531760_bjto.jpg?v=1785353892"},{"product_id":"vintage-wyoming-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1970s Wyoming Highway Patrol 🦬 Special Police Tin Litho Toy Badge New Old Stock Original Card Made in Japan","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Wyoming Highway Patrol Toy Badges? 🦬 A Bison on a Dime-Store Card\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wox6S_hH37c\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a round tin litho button, still pinned to its yellow card and sealed in its poly sleeve, the way it hung on the dime-store rack. It's a toy, made for kids, and a good-looking one - the kind of thing that made a kid stop at the counter. They seldom turn up for sale, carded or loose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe card does its own share of the work. A cartoon motorcycle cop fills the left side of it: white peaked cap, big motorcycle goggles, gloved hands on the bars, a city skyline behind him, all under a red banner reading SPECIAL POLICE BADGE. JAPAN is printed small in the lower corner, which is where these were made.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎨 The Button Itself\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe button carries a white bison, walking, set on a blue disc in the center. Around it, on a black ring, WYOMING arches over the top and HIGHWAY PATROL runs along the bottom, both in yellow. A red rim and then a yellow one frame the whole thing. It's bold and simple, and it reads instantly from across a store shelf.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🤠 The Wyoming Highway Patrol\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat bison isn't a made-up mascot - the real Wyoming Highway Patrol has worn one since its first year. The Patrol was created in 1933, after Wyoming's old Department of Law Enforcement, whose whole job had been enforcing Prohibition, was disbanded. On May 23, 1933, the Highway Commission put Captain George \"Red\" Smith in charge and gave him six newly trained patrolmen to cover the entire state: enforcing motor vehicle registration and licensing, the rules of the road, and, as the law put it, \"all laws for the protection of the highways.\" Their training lasted three weeks, and the recruits paid their own expenses to get through it. The California Highway Patrol, founded in 1929, was the model for the western states, and it was a CHP man, Inspector William White, who ran that first Wyoming recruit class; the six were picked from the fourteen who finished it. The pay was $175 a month for a patrolman and $200 for the captain. The Legislature made the Patrol official in January 1935, and by the end of that year it was up to thirteen men. In 1954 troopers started experimenting with radar to clock speeders, and those first units only worked with the patrol car parked.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThose first troopers rode out in forest green military coats, oak brown breeches and caps, Sam Browne belts, and brown riding boots, with a buffalo and winged wheel worn on the sleeve. The buffalo stuck. It's still the Patrol's emblem today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing on this card carries a date, but the family it came from gives it away. The same card design turns up with an NYPD button copying the patch New York adopted in July 1971, and a San Francisco button copying the patch that department added around 1970 - so this whole line of cards was on the racks in the 1970s. The button itself runs about an inch and a half across.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🚔 Badges Weren't Just Toys\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThis kind of tin badge had real company. Sheriffs handed out tin badges just like it as prizes in their youth programs. Starting in the 1920s, police departments across the country backed school safety patrols too, putting real belts and real badges on schoolkids by the millions. A dime-store bison badge like this one rode that same wave - a kid who couldn't get the real thing could still buy this one with pocket change and pin it on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-alamo-texas-deputy-sheriff-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage Tin Litho Deputy Sheriff Badge 🌟 Special Police Toy Pin Alamo Texas Made in Japan 1970s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-florida-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Florida Highway Patrol 🍊 Special Police Toy Badge Pin NOS Carded Tin Litho Made in Japan Mid-Century\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-mississippi-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Mississippi Highway Patrol Tin Litho Toy Police Badge 🚔 NOS on Special Police Card Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769734967461,"sku":"VAG-7034823508133","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3334195377_563k.jpg?v=1785353901"},{"product_id":"vintage-herb-cooper-special-security-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge","title":"Vintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Herb Cooper Special Security Patrol Pin — Made in Japan, 1960s-1970s","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWho Was Herb Cooper's Special Security Patrol? 🚔 Vintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/OOby8hiLuq8\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🚔 What You've Got Here\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a New Old Stock tin litho pinback button, still pinned to its original card and sealed in its poly sleeve, never opened, exactly as it sat on the dime-store rack. The card is yellow with a red banner across the top reading SPECIAL POLICE BADGE, and under it a cartoon motorcycle cop leans over his handlebars — white peaked cap, big round goggles, one gloved hand steady on the bars, a city skyline sketched in behind him. Down in the corner, small, it just says JAPAN. That's where these were made and printed, for the American dime-store trade. Back then the dime store meant Woolworth's, Kresge's, Ben Franklin, Newberry's, G.C. Murphy, McCrory's and W.T. Grant.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe button itself is about an inch and a half across, yellow rim, green ring, with a white band running around it. HERB COOPER arches across the top of that band in red, SPECIAL SECURITY across the bottom. In the green center a bird rises with its wings thrown wide — gold feathers etched over white, eagle or phoenix, take your pick — its tail feathers fanned out at the base like a little crown, and PATROL banked in bold red letters right across its middle. Red, white, green, gold, and that dime-store yellow: five colors laid down clean and bright, the way the good tin litho work always was.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🦅 Herb Cooper, Special Security Patrol\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere's what makes this one different from the rest of the family. Most of the badges on this card style borrow a real police department's patch — a city you'd recognize on the button, a real force behind the name. This one doesn't. It names a security patrol instead: HERB COOPER SPECIAL SECURITY PATROL, spelled straight out in red around the rim, with PATROL banked across the bird in the middle. A special security patrol with a man's name on it reads like a private outfit rather than a police force. The button doesn't say what town or state it worked out of — just the name and the bird, nothing more. It's the odd one out on this card, and that's exactly why I like it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere's no date printed anywhere on the card, but the rest of the family gives it away. The same card design carries a New York button copying the NYPD patch adopted July 1, 1971, and a San Francisco button copying the SFPD patch added around 1970. That puts the whole card family, this one included, on the dime-store racks in the 1970s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🚔 The Real Junior Programs Behind Badges Like This\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDime-store tin badges did not live in a vacuum. Across mid-century America, real law enforcement agencies ran junior deputy and junior police programs: sheriffs swore in wide-eyed honorary junior deputies at county fairs and school assemblies, police departments sponsored school safety patrols — a movement that began in the 1920s and put belts and badges on millions of schoolchildren — and an officer handing a kid a badge at a parade or classroom visit was a familiar piece of civic life. Sheriffs gave tin badges just like this one out as prizes in their youth programs, too. A Special Security Patrol badge in a child's hand belonged to that same world, the era when a badge from a trusted grown-up could make a kid stand a little straighter. That is the history a carded survivor like this carries beyond its tin and ink.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-florida-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Florida Highway Patrol 🍊 Special Police Toy Badge Pin NOS Carded Tin Litho Made in Japan Mid-Century\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-lee-county-georgia-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Lee County Georgia Sheriff Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge Pin 🚔 New Old Stock on Card\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1970s-san-francisco-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s San Francisco Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho Button Pin New Old Stock Japan Original Card Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769735229605,"sku":"VAG-7034823606437","price":20.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3286276894_kb88.jpg?v=1785353910"},{"product_id":"vintage-sauk-county-wisconsin-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🔴 Sauk County Sheriff's Dept Wisconsin Tin Litho Button on Original Card Japan","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Sauk County Special Police Toy Badges? 🔴 A Sauk County Special, Still on the Card\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qU_tzi7JMw0\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHere's a little piece of Wisconsin off the dime-store rack. It's a round tin litho button, red rim, black shield outlined in yellow, SHERIFF'S DEPT. arched across the top and SAUK COUNTY WIS. anchored across the bottom. Still pinned to its original yellow card, sealed in its poly sleeve, red banner across the top reading SPECIAL POLICE BADGE. It's a toy, sized for a kid's shirt pocket, and these never left the card to find out how a shirt pocket treats a badge. And they're rare - carded or loose, a Sauk County one just doesn't come up for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe card art is the same character you'll find across this whole family of badges: a motorcycle cop in a white peaked cap and big driving goggles, gloved hands on the bars, a hazy city skyline behind him. Down in the corner, small print reads JAPAN. That's where these were printed in tin for the American dime-store trade.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🌲 Sauk County and Baraboo\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSauk County sits in south-central Wisconsin, carved out of Wisconsin Territory in 1840 and formally organized in 1844. It's named for the Sauk people, who had a village there. The county seat is Baraboo, first settled by Abe Wood back in 1838. It went by the name Adams at first, won the county seat in 1846 after a fierce fight with nearby Reedsburg, took the name Baraboo from its river in 1852, and was chartered as a city in 1882.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSauk County did its part in World War II, too: the Badger Ordnance Works, down by Prairie du Sac, made the nitrocellulose powder that fired the guns and rockets, and it went back to work for Korea and again for Vietnam. But Baraboo's biggest claim to fame is the circus. The Ringling brothers grew up there, and from 1884 to 1917 the town was the headquarters of their circus, and a few others besides — enough that Baraboo earned the nickname \"Circus City.\" The Circus World Museum still stands there today, holding the old circus wagons and what's said to be the largest library of circus history in the country.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe county is also home to Devil's Lake State Park, takes in part of the Wisconsin Dells, and is Aldo Leopold country too — the setting for \u003cem\u003eA Sand County Almanac\u003c\/em\u003e. These days the Ho-Chunk Nation is Sauk County's largest employer. That's a lot of Wisconsin packed behind one little button.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🪶 What's on the Badge\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe button itself carries a shield in black, outlined in yellow, set against a red field. At the center, in profile, is a Native American man in a full feathered war bonnet — a red face, white feathers tipped in red and black, a small medallion at the collar. SHERIFF'S DEPT. runs across the top of the shield, SAUK COUNTY WIS. across the bottom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing on this one carries a date, but the rest of the card family gives it away. The same card design also turns up with a New York City button copying the NYPD patch adopted in July 1971, and a San Francisco button copying a patch the SFPD added around 1970 — which puts the whole line, Sauk County included, on the dime-store racks sometime in the 1970s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e👮 Junior Deputies, Safety Patrols, and the World This Badge Lived In\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere is a real history standing behind every mid-century toy badge. This was the era of the junior deputy and the school safety patrol: sheriffs' offices swore children in as honorary junior deputies at fairs and school assemblies, safety patrol programs — running strong since the 1920s — pinned badges on generations of schoolchildren, and a visit from an officer with badges to hand out was a fixture of American civic childhood. Sheriffs gave tin badges just like this one out as prizes in their youth programs, too. A Sauk County Sheriff's Department badge belonged to that world. When a child pinned one on, the game borrowed its seriousness from programs that were entirely real — and that is part of the history a survivor like this one still carries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-mississippi-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Mississippi Highway Patrol Tin Litho Toy Police Badge 🚔 NOS on Special Police Card Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-laurens-county-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🌟 Laurens County Sheriff's Dept — 1960s-1970s Japan, Original Card\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-plorham-park-florham-park-nj-police-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Plorham Park NJ Police 🚔 Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge Pin Error Misprint New Old Stock Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769735458981,"sku":"VAG-7034823704741","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3286191558_6rh8.jpg?v=1785353920"},{"product_id":"vintage-lee-county-georgia-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Lee County Georgia Sheriff Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge Pin 🚔 New Old Stock on Card","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWho Was Sheriff of Lee County, Georgia? ⭐ A Round Star for Lee County, Georgia\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/WKFhlzPCyuo\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a tin litho pinback, black ground, about an inch and a half across, with a big yellow five-point star printed across the face. A red ring reads \u003cstrong\u003eSHERIFF'S DEPT.\u003c\/strong\u003e across the top and \u003cstrong\u003eCOUNTY\u003c\/strong\u003e along the bottom. Down across the star's lower point, in red script, it reads \u003cstrong\u003eLee\u003c\/strong\u003e, with \u003cstrong\u003eGEORGIA\u003c\/strong\u003e set in solid caps just above. It's a toy badge, sized for a kid's shirt pocket, not a working part of anybody's uniform. They seldom turn up for sale, carded or loose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe card underneath is doing its own job. A red banner across the top reads \u003cem\u003eSPECIAL POLICE BADGE\u003c\/em\u003e, and beside it a cartoon motorcycle cop in a white cap and big goggles leans over his handlebars with a city skyline behind him. JAPAN is printed small in the corner. Japan was the dime store's toy factory for a generation after the war, turning out tin toys and badges by the millions for American racks, until a stronger yen in the 1970s sent much of that work on to Hong Kong and Taiwan. Badge and card come sealed together in a poly sleeve, the way they hung on the rack.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏛️ The Little Seal at the Center\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLook close at the middle of the star and there's a tiny round medallion: an arch on columns with a figure standing inside it. It's a miniature of the \u003cstrong\u003eGeorgia state seal\u003c\/strong\u003e, an arch held up by three pillars for Wisdom, Justice and Moderation, with a soldier standing guard underneath. Whoever drew this button's art was quoting the state's own seal, shrunk down to fit inside the star.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📜 Lee County's Own Story\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLee County is real, and it's old. Georgia's legislature created it by acts of June 9, 1825 and December 11, 1826, and named it for a Lee, though which one is a fair question. Some say \u003cstrong\u003eRichard Henry Lee\u003c\/strong\u003e, the Virginia congressman who in 1776 moved that the colonies \"declare themselves free and independent.\" Others say it was \u003cstrong\u003eHenry \"Light-Horse Harry\" Lee III\u003c\/strong\u003e, the Revolutionary cavalry commander. The county's own historical marker tells it both ways, so I will too. The first officers were commissioned May 14, 1827, \u003cstrong\u003eNathan Powell\u003c\/strong\u003e among them as sheriff, the very office named on this button. The county was bigger in its early days too: its original ground later became Randolph, Stewart, Quitman, Sumter, Terrell and Webster counties, plus pieces of Marion and Clay. The county seat today is Leesburg, just up the road from Albany, and the sheriff is still elected by the county's voters every four years, as Georgia sheriffs have been since the state's early days.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing on the card gives a year, but the rest of the family does. The same card design carries a New York button copying the NYPD patch adopted July 1, 1971, and a San Francisco button copying the SFPD patch added around 1970. That puts this whole line of cards on the dime-store racks in the 1970s, Lee County right along with them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🚔 Badges Kids Really Got\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDime-store tin badges weren't just toys sitting on a rack. Real sheriff's departments ran junior deputy and youth programs, swearing kids in at fairs and school visits and handing out belts and badges of their own. Sheriffs gave tin badges just like this one out as prizes in their youth programs, too. A kid who got handed a little star like this one walked away standing a bit taller, and that's the other half of what a card like this carries.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-laurens-county-sheriffs-dept-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🌟 Laurens County Sheriff's Dept — 1960s-1970s Japan, Original Card\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-herb-cooper-special-security-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Herb Cooper Special Security Patrol Pin — Made in Japan, 1960s-1970s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-commonwealth-of-massachusetts-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Commonwealth of Massachusetts Tin Litho New Old Stock on Original Card\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769736147109,"sku":"VAG-7034823770277","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3333826789_1g92.jpg?v=1785353930"},{"product_id":"vintage-department-of-defense-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Department of Defense DOD Eagle Seal Pinback Made in Japan 1960s-1970s","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWhose Seal Is on This Special Police Toy Badge? 🚔 Special Police, Borrowed Seal and All\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/5ysxBp9gXpw\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is a little tin litho pinback still riding on its original yellow card and sealed in its sleeve, under a red banner that reads SPECIAL POLICE BADGE. The card art is a cartoon motorcycle officer: white peaked cap, big goggles over his eyes, a gloved hand on the handlebars, a city skyline drawn in behind him. The button pinned beside him has a red rim around a black shield face. POLICE runs big across the top, DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE arcs above the seal in the middle, UNITED STATES OF AMERICA arcs below it. JAPAN is printed small in the corner of the card, which is where these were tin lithographed before they crossed the ocean to sit on an American dime-store rack. And they're rare - carded or loose, a Department of Defense one just doesn't come up for sale.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🦅 The Seal It Borrowed\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat center image is the Department of Defense seal, redrawn small for a toy: an eagle with its wings spread, a striped shield on its chest, a leafy wreath underneath, and an arc of stars throwing rays above its head. The real seal carries thirteen stars, a shield of thirteen stripes, three crossed arrows in the eagle's talons and a wreath of laurel and olive. Count the stars on this little button and you'll get fourteen, seven either side of a center ray - one more than Uncle Sam's, and I love it for that. The seal itself was authorized on August 22, 1949, by Defense Secretary Louis Johnson. The name on it was brand new then: on August 10, 1949, President Truman signed the amendments to the National Security Act that turned the old National Military Establishment into the Department of Defense, with Johnson leaning on the desk as he signed. Whoever made this toy took that seal and printed POLICE across the top of it. The Pentagon itself didn't get a police force of its own until 1987, when the Defense Protective Service was stood up - it became the U.S. Pentagon Police in 2002 - so this little badge was wearing POLICE over that seal a good decade before the Pentagon had police of its own. I like that about it. So who was minding the building back when cards like this were hanging on the dime-store racks? The General Services Administration, not the Defense Department. Up to 1971 it was GSA's United States Special Police, mostly a guard-and-watchman crew looking after the property - which makes the SPECIAL POLICE banner on this card a funny little coincidence. Then the mass demonstrations, bombings and bomb threats of those years brought in GSA's Federal Protective Service, and guarding the Pentagon stayed in GSA's hands right up to that 1987 handover.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing on the card spells out a year, but the family it belongs to does the telling. The same card design shows up carrying a New York button copying the NYPD patch adopted in July 1971, and a San Francisco button copying the patch the SFPD added around 1970. Put those side by side and this whole run of cards was on the racks in the 1970s. The button itself runs about an inch and a half across; the card is 4 by 2.25 inches. There's no maker or importer printed anywhere on it, just JAPAN in small letters in the corner — that's all it ever gave up about where it came from.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🚔 The Real Junior Programs Behind Badges Like This\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDime-store tin badges did not live in a vacuum. Across mid-century America, real law enforcement agencies ran junior deputy and junior police programs: sheriffs swore in wide-eyed honorary junior deputies at county fairs and school assemblies, police departments sponsored school safety patrols — a movement that began in the 1920s and put belts and badges on millions of schoolchildren — and an officer handing a kid a badge at a parade or classroom visit was a familiar piece of civic life. Sheriffs gave tin badges just like this one out as prizes in their youth programs, too. A Department of Defense Special Police badge in a child's hand belonged to that same world, the era when a badge from a trusted grown-up could make a kid stand a little straighter. That is the history a carded survivor like this carries beyond its tin and ink.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-suffolk-county-new-york-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Suffolk County NY Tin Litho Pin-Back Button NOS on Display Card Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-woodbury-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Woodbury Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho on Original Pin, NOS Japan Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1970s-san-francisco-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s San Francisco Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho Button Pin New Old Stock Japan Original Card Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769736573093,"sku":"VAG-7034823835813","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3333763041_9z8z.jpg?v=1785353938"},{"product_id":"vintage-abilene-texas-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Abilene Police Special Police Toy Badge 🦅 Tin Litho Pin-Back Button NOS Japan Card Mid-Century","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Abilene Police Toy Badges? 🦅 An Eagle Standing Guard for Abilene\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/KSbAS6FzAw8\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eHere's a little tin litho pinback that means business. Black field, a red ring border, about an inch and a half across, and right in the middle a gold-and-red eagle with its wings thrown wide, standing over an open book with a sword and a quill laid across the pages. ABILENE arcs across the top in red, POLICE sits along the bottom. It's still pinned to its yellow card and sealed in its original sleeve, exactly the way it hung on the rack. It's a toy, made for a kid's shirt pocket, and it doesn't apologize for it. They seldom turn up for sale, carded or loose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe card carries the rest of the show. A cartoon motorcycle officer fills the left side: white peaked cap, big motorcycle goggles, gloved hands wrapped around the handlebars, a city skyline behind him, all under a red banner reading SPECIAL POLICE BADGE. Down in the corner, small and plain, it says JAPAN. That's where these were pressed and printed, tin lithographed for the American dime-store trade. Japan's tin toys had been getting to American kids that way since the years after the war, off the five-and-dime counters at Woolworth's, W.T. Grant, Ben Franklin, J.J. Newberry, G.C. Murphy and McCrory's.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🤠 Abilene, Texas\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe eagle-over-a-book design on this button matches the shoulder patch Abilene, Texas police officers actually wore, so that's the town this little badge is pointing at. Abilene got its start in 1881, when cattlemen laid it out as a stock-shipping point on the Texas and Pacific Railway and incorporated it that same year, borrowing the name from Abilene, Kansas, the old end of the Chisholm Trail. That Kansas namesake has a lawman story that suits a police badge: Wild Bill Hickok was hired as its town marshal in April 1871, its last big year as a cattle town. On October 5 of that year he shot it out in the street with a saloon owner named Phil Coe, and when another armed man came running up in the middle of it, Hickok couldn't tell who it was and fired on him too. It was his own deputy and friend, Mike Williams, coming to help him. Williams died that night, Coe a few days later, and Hickok was out of the job that December. As it happens, the Kansas Abilene is also where Dwight Eisenhower grew up - and Ike was a Texan by birth, born in Denison in 1890 before his family moved up to Abilene in 1892. His presidential library and museum is there today, and so is his grave. Back in Texas, the new Abilene picked up two nicknames along the way, \"The Key City\" and \"The Friendly Frontier,\" and it grew into a real West Texas hub - Dyess Air Force Base went up with the town's own fundraising behind it and is still the biggest employer around, and Abilene is a three-college town: Hardin-Simmons (1891), Abilene Christian (1906), and McMurry (1923). There's even a book on the department itself, \u003cem\u003eGunfire on South Front: History of the Abilene Police Department, 1881-1993\u003c\/em\u003e.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e⚖️ What the Eagle Carries\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eLook close and this design is doing more than filling space. The eagle isn't perched on a shield - it's standing on an open book, with a sword and a quill crossed over the pages. Authority next to the written law, enforcement and record side by side. It's one of the sharper designs in this card family, and whoever drew it knew what they were doing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThere's no date printed on the card, but the family it belongs to gives it away. The same yellow card carries a New York City button copying the NYPD patch adopted July 1, 1971, and a San Francisco button copying the patch the SFPD added around 1970 - so these were hanging on the racks in the 1970s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🚔 Badges and Kids\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBadges like this one had a real life outside the toy aisle, too. Sheriffs handed out tin badges just like this as prizes in their own youth programs, and police departments have backed school safety patrols since the 1920s, putting real belts and badges on schoolchildren all over the country. A kid pinning this one to his shirt was playing at something departments really did put in kids' hands. That's a good bit of history for a five-and-dime toy to carry along.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-indianapolis-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Indianapolis Police Special Toy Badge Pin 🚔 Tin Litho on Card Mid-Century Japan Dime Store NOS\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-florida-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Florida Highway Patrol 🍊 Special Police Toy Badge Pin NOS Carded Tin Litho Made in Japan Mid-Century\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-woodbury-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Woodbury Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho on Original Pin, NOS Japan Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769736966309,"sku":"VAG-7034824032421","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3332059741_psm4.jpg?v=1785353948"},{"product_id":"vintage-halifax-county-north-carolina-sheriffs-tin-litho-toy-badge","title":"Vintage 1960s-1970s Sheriff's Halifax County Special Police Badge Pin 🚔 Japan Tin Litho Star Button, Cracker Jack Era Novelty Toy Badge","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWho Was Sheriff of Halifax County? ⭐ A Star for a County, Not a City\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sHk2ra2M4Kk\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis one skips the big city and goes straight for the county. The button is a round tin litho pin, red rim, green field, with a bold five-point star in orange and gold right in the middle - a small ball at the tip of every point and a braided rope pattern running down each arm. SHERIFF'S arcs across the top of the star, DEPARTMENT across the bottom, and the inner ring reads HALIFAX above COUNTY below. Dead center, inside a thin red ring, sits a tiny seal with two figures - and that seal is the whole story, because it's a miniature of the North Carolina state seal, \u003cem\u003eLiberty and Plenty\u003c\/em\u003e, the same pair that stand on the real state seal today. There's no \"NC\" printed anywhere on this star, but that little seal settles it: this is Halifax County, North Carolina. They seldom turn up for sale, carded or loose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e(There's a Halifax County in Virginia too, formed out of Lunenburg County in 1752 and named for the same Earl, but the seal on this button points only one direction.)\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's still riding its original card, sealed in the sleeve. A red banner across the top reads SPECIAL POLICE BADGE, and below it a cartoon motorcycle officer in a white cap, big goggles and an olive glove on the handlebar grip leans forward with a hazy little city skyline behind him - funny pairing for a county badge, but that's dime-store art for you. JAPAN is printed small in the corner. It's a kid's toy through and through, never claiming to be anything more.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏛️ The County That Voted First\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHalifax County, North Carolina was carved out of Edgecombe County in 1758, named for George Montagu-Dunk, the 2nd Earl of Halifax. The split took effect on January 1, 1759, when everything in Edgecombe north of Fishing Creek and the Rainbow Banks on the Roanoke River became Halifax County, so the name on this little star was already on the map seventeen years before independence was even on the table. Its county seat, the town of Halifax, sat on the Roanoke River and grew into a real trading hub before the railroads came through and moved the traffic elsewhere. The county likes to say it has sent North Carolina more governors, congressmen and generals than any other county in the state, and it's proud of one date above all: April 12, 1776, when the Fourth Provincial Congress met at Halifax and authorized North Carolina's delegates to vote for independence - the first official move toward independence by any of the thirteen colonies. North Carolina still marks it as Halifax Day, and the date rides right on the state flag.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing on the card gives a year, but the rest of the family does. The same card design turns up with a New York City button copying the NYPD patch adopted July 1, 1971, and a San Francisco button copying the SFPD patch added around 1970. That puts this whole card run, Halifax County included, in the 1970s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🚔 The Real Junior Programs Behind Badges Like This\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDime-store tin badges did not live in a vacuum. Across mid-century America, real law enforcement agencies ran junior deputy and junior police programs: sheriffs swore in wide-eyed honorary junior deputies at county fairs and school assemblies, police departments sponsored school safety patrols — a movement that began in the 1920s and put belts and badges on millions of schoolchildren — and an officer handing a kid a badge at a parade or classroom visit was a familiar piece of civic life. Sheriffs gave tin badges just like this one out as prizes in their youth programs, too. A Special Police badge like this one in a child's hand belonged to that same world, the era when a badge from a trusted grown-up could make a kid stand a little straighter. That's the history a carded survivor like this one carries beyond its tin and ink.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-plorham-park-florham-park-nj-police-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Plorham Park NJ Police 🚔 Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge Pin Error Misprint New Old Stock Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-herb-cooper-special-security-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Herb Cooper Special Security Patrol Pin — Made in Japan, 1960s-1970s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1970s-san-francisco-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s San Francisco Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho Button Pin New Old Stock Japan Original Card Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769738506405,"sku":"VAG-7034824392869","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3284104622_lt7g.jpg?v=1785353957"},{"product_id":"vintage-alamo-texas-deputy-sheriff-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan","title":"Vintage Tin Litho Deputy Sheriff Badge 🌟 Special Police Toy Pin Alamo Texas Made in Japan 1970s","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Deputy Sheriff Toy Badges? 🚨 A Special Police Badge, Still on the Card\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 4\" x 2 1\/4\" ~ New Old Stock, still on its card.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/d_k03Yms0Tk\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a little tin litho pin still riding its yellow card, sealed in its sleeve, the way it hung on a dime-store rack. The card's red banner reads SPECIAL POLICE BADGE in white letters, and under it a cartoon motorcycle cop leans into his handlebars: white cap, big goggles, one gloved hand on the grip, a city skyline sketched in behind him. Down in the corner, small, it says JAPAN. That's where these were printed in tin for the American dime-store trade. After the war, Japan's tin wind-up and battery toys reached American kids through five-and-dimes like Woolworth's, Ben Franklin and McCrory's, and this little carded badge was made for the same kind of dime-store counter. Pinned to the card is a red-and-blue deputy sheriff star for Alamo, Texas. It's a toy, made for a kid's shirt pocket, and a good one. They seldom turn up for sale, carded or loose.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🌵 Alamo, Texas\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAlamo is a real town, down in Hidalgo County in the Rio Grande Valley, a few miles southeast of McAllen. Around 1902 to 1909, Peter Ebenezer Blalock and George T. Hawkins put the land together and laid out a townsite with shipping pens, naming the depot \"Ebenezer.\" In 1909 the Alamo Land and Sugar Company bought the site and moved it to higher ground, and the Alamo Townsite Company, run by C. H. Swallow and Rentfro Creager, promoted it from there. It went through the names Forum and Swallow before it settled on Alamo, and the story goes it was named, in the end, for the old mission up in San Antonio - the Alamo, the one that gives this little badge's star its punch, where Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett and the rest of the Texian defenders held out for thirteen days in 1836 against Santa Anna's far bigger Mexican army. Alamo incorporated in 1924, had about 200 people the next year, passed 3,000 by 1950, and was pushing 15,000 by 2000. For much of that stretch it was a shipping point for citrus and vegetables out of the Valley.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA sheriff is a county job, so a real deputy sheriff working out of Alamo would have carried a Hidalgo County badge, not a city one. This little star is doing what dime-store badges did best, borrowing a Texas name a kid already knew, long before he ever asked which county it sat in. That name got into American kids' heads in a big way in the '50s. Disney's first three Davy Crockett episodes ran from December 1954 to February 1955, the third one \"Davy Crockett at the Alamo,\" and they set off a Crockett fad among boys all over the country. Coonskin caps sold 5,000 a day at the peak, and by the end of 1955 Americans had bought more than $300 million worth of Crockett merchandise. A tin sheriff's star comes out of that same cowboy-toy world. With Hopalong Cassidy, the Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers all over TV and the movies, Western toys made up nearly a quarter of all toy sales in the 1950s. The Cisco Kid and his sidekick Pancho were popular with kids too, riding through 156 half-hour TV episodes from 1950 to 1956, and Gunsmoke kept the Old West on CBS from 1955 all the way to 1975.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e⭐ The Star on the Badge\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe badge is a black six-point star on a red field with a blue rim, its points ball-tipped and its whole outline traced in a fine chain-link border. A gold ribbon crosses the top reading DEPUTY, with SHERIFF banked underneath it. Right at the center sits a round seal, STATE OF TEXAS in white letters on blue, with a single star set inside an olive-and-live-oak wreath. Two more gold ribbons carry the bottom points: ALAMO over TEX.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗓️ When These Were Made\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing on the card gives a year, but the rest of the family does. The same yellow card comes with a New York badge copying the NYPD patch adopted in July 1971 and a San Francisco badge copying the patch the SFPD added around 1970, so this whole run was on the racks in the 1970s. There's no maker or importer printed anywhere on it, just JAPAN.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e⭐ When Kids Really Did Get Badges from the Law\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe mid-century American childhood this badge comes from was full of real badges given by real officers. Junior deputy programs let sheriffs swear in schoolkids as honorary deputies; school safety patrol programs, organized since the 1920s, put badges and belts on millions of children; police departments handed out badges at parades, fairs, and classroom visits as a matter of civic routine. An Alamo, Texas deputy sheriff star was the dime-store cousin of all that, the badge a kid could buy with pocket change. Sheriffs gave tin badges just like these out as prizes in their youth programs, too. That documented world of junior programs is the backdrop this little survivor belongs to.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-plorham-park-florham-park-nj-police-tin-litho-toy-badge\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s Plorham Park NJ Police 🚔 Tin Litho Special Police Toy Badge Pin Error Misprint New Old Stock Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-wyoming-highway-patrol-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1970s Wyoming Highway Patrol 🦬 Special Police Tin Litho Toy Badge New Old Stock Original Card Made in Japan\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1970s-san-francisco-police-tin-litho-toy-badge-japan\"\u003eVintage 1960s-1970s San Francisco Special Police Toy Badge 🚔 Tin Litho Button Pin New Old Stock Japan Original Card Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":40769738965157,"sku":"VAG-7034824523941","price":18.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3284024112_flyv.jpg?v=1785353966"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-california-raisins-pinback-button-set-all-9","title":"Vintage 1980s California Raisins 📌 Complete Set All 9 Tin Pins","description":"\u003ch2\u003e🍇 Remember When Raisins Could Dance?\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/6DBA5glNF5E\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eI still catch myself humming it — that bassline hit, and a whole gang of clay raisins in sunglasses and sneakers would strut across the screen like they owned the place. If you were anywhere near a TV in the late '80s, you know exactly the feeling I mean. This is a complete set of nine California Raisins pinback buttons, each one its own little personality: a surfer riding a blue wave on a red board, a singer with a red microphone and a blue bow tie, a saxophone player, one in red sunglasses pointing skyward, another in red sunglasses pointing with both hands, one smiling and pointing up, one with a hand near its face, one with both gloved hands raised by its cheeks, and a tennis player in orange sunglasses with a racket and ball. Nine different poses, all from the same grinning cast.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📺 Where They Came From\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe idea started as a pitch nobody was sure would work. Seth Werner, a copywriter at Foote, Cone \u0026amp; Belding's office in San Francisco, California, came up with dancing raisins set to \"I Heard It Through the Grapevine\" — and the California Raisin Advisory Board, the growers' own promotion board, actually ran with it. The first thirty-second commercial aired September 14, 1986, and it turned a fruit nobody thought twice about into the thing everyone was talking about.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎬 Claymation and the Cast Behind the Cast\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWill Vinton's studio animated them frame by frame — the same Vinton who later trademarked the word \"Claymation\" itself. Michael Brunsfeld designed their now-iconic look, and Buddy Miles sang lead. The very first commercial, \"Lunch Box,\" won a Clio Award, \"Late Show\" took home the Lion d'Argent at Cannes, and \"Raisin Ray\" brought back the Gold Award for Best Animated TV Commercial from the Houston International Film Festival. Not bad at all for an ad about dried fruit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🍔 The Hardee's Years\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHardee's put them in kids' hands with molded California Raisins figurines in 1987, again in 1988, and once more in 1991. By then the Raisins had two television specials, \u003cem\u003eMeet the Raisins\u003c\/em\u003e and \u003cem\u003eRaisins Sold Out\u003c\/em\u003e, their own Saturday morning cartoon, \u003cem\u003eThe California Raisin Show\u003c\/em\u003e, and a part in \u003cem\u003eA Claymation Christmas Celebration\u003c\/em\u003e, which went on to win an Emmy. There was even an album, \u003cem\u003eThe California Raisins Sing the Hit Songs\u003c\/em\u003e. My favorite bit of trivia: it was \u003cem\u003eMeet the Raisins\u003c\/em\u003e, on CBS on November 4, 1988, that finally gave the band names — A.C. Arborman on vocals, his younger brother Beebop Arborman on drums, their cousin Red Raisin on guitar and piano, and their friend Stamford \"Stretch\" Thompson on bass. For a few years there, they were everywhere. Even the Smithsonian took notice, and a good many of the pieces made for the campaign are part of its permanent collection today.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📉 The Twist Nobody Put on the Lunch Box\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere's the part the merchandise never told you: that first commercial actually worked — raisin sales rose about 20 percent after it aired. But running the whole campaign, the commercials, the specials, the licensing, cost the growers almost twice what it brought back in. The California Raisin Advisory Board closed its doors on July 31, 1994, after the farmers themselves balked at the fees. The characters didn't disappear, though — the rights passed to the State of California, and from 1998 on they were licensed out through the California Raisin Marketing Board. It's a genuinely bittersweet story: the ad worked, and it still wasn't enough to save the board that made it.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📌 What's In This Set\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNine round buttons, 1.5 inches each, on plain white grounds: the surfer, the singer, the saxophone player, the two in red sunglasses, the one smiling and pointing up, the one with a hand near its face, the one with both hands raised by its cheeks, and the tennis player. Flip one over and you'll find a metal face shell crimped over a white plastic back with a gold-tone safety pin, and no printing anywhere, front or back. Pin the whole set to a jacket, line them up on a shelf, whatever you like — they're still one of my favorite little relics of that whole raisin-shaped moment in advertising history, and I like knowing a piece of that story is going out the door with them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-dancing-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Dancing California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-all-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s All Me California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-pointing-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Pointing California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41976428495080,"sku":"VAG-7355033256168","price":26.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3430653186_5rgk.jpg?v=1785355856"},{"product_id":"vintage-1950s-planters-mr-peanut-cloth-sticker-rip-another-american-icon","title":"Vintage Planters Mr. Peanut Cloth Sticker 🥜 1950s-1960s Printed Cloth Patch","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWho Drew Mr. Peanut? 🎩 A Vintage 1950s-1960s Planters Mr. Peanut Die-Cut Cloth Sticker\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 2 1\/2\" x 1\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/sHlDR9C1tFA\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eA little die-cut cloth sticker cut to the shape of Mr. Peanut himself, standing tall in his black top hat with MR. PEANUT on the band, monocle on, a big smile, one hand on his hip and the other on his long cane, legs crossed, spats on. He's printed in flat golden yellow and black straight onto white cloth - look close and you can see the weave right through the yellow - with a small MR PEANUT and the registered mark at his feet. Every one I have is unused. Nothing on them says who made them or when; sellers who've found them in old stock date them to the 1950s, and one batch turned up in an old envelope with 1950's written on the front.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🥜 The boy who got off at the wrong stop\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAmedeo Obici was eleven when he sailed from Italy in March 1889 to join an uncle in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He got misdirected and stepped off the train in Wilkes-Barre instead, where the Musante family took him in and he worked in their fruit store, and later married their daughter Louise. He saved up for his own fruit stand with a peanut roaster, and one of the loveliest bits of company lore survives from his earliest days in business. To sell more peanuts he slipped the letters of his name, O, B, I and C, into the bags, but only one O for every fifty bags, and whoever spelled it out won a gold watch - a gold-colored Ingersoll, the story goes, that cost him a dollar. In 1906 he and Mario Peruzzi started Planters, incorporated in 1908 as the Planters Nut and Chocolate Company.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🎩 The schoolboy who drew a legend\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1916 Planters ran a contest for a trademark, and a Suffolk, Virginia schoolboy named Antonio Gentile sent in a little peanut man with arms, legs and a cane. He won five dollars. A commercial artist added the top hat, monocle and spats, and that's the fellow on this sticker. Planters has since given him a whole backstory - British, with the full name Bartholomew Richard Fitzgerald-Smythe - which is the kind of thing you only do for a mascot people love. In 1935 he got his own car, the peanut-shaped NUTmobile, and Planters Peanut Shoppes put him in the windows on Times Square and the Atlantic City boardwalk.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🌾 Suffolk, the peanut capital\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1913 Obici and Peruzzi built their plant in Suffolk, Virginia, right in peanut country, and it grew into the biggest peanut processor in the world. Suffolk already had peanut companies - the Suffolk Peanut Company, started in 1898 by John Y. King and Colonel John B. Pinner, is on the National Register now - but Planters is what made it the peanut capital. Obici never forgot the town: the hospital he founded in his late wife Louise's memory opened there in 1951, four years after he died. And when the old eight-story Planters factory came down in July 1995, after 82 years in the neighborhood, Suffolk folks showed up at 5:30 in the morning with lawn chairs, cameras and camcorders and stood on rooftops with their kids to watch it go. A Mr. Peanut statue still stands downtown.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🏛️ Still tipping his hat\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eVery few mascots from 1916 are still working. Mr. Peanut is - Planters belongs to Hormel Foods now, and the schoolboy's five-dollar peanut is still on every jar.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🎩 About these\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey're about 2 1\/2 by 1 inches. Frame one, put it in a scrapbook, a shadow box with a Planters jar, or a Suffolk kid who grew up smelling roasting peanuts. The supply is finite - Planters isn't making these cloth stickers again, and once these last unused ones are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1968-nixon-good-loser-sticker-tricky-dick-republican-collectible\"\u003eVintage 1968 Nixon Is a Good Loser Sticker 🗳️ Tricky Dick Republican NOS Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-planters-mr-peanut-whistle-1950s-rip-1916-2020-highly-collectible\"\u003eVintage 1950s Planters Mr. Peanut Figural Whistle 🥜 NOS Advertising Collectible Red \u0026amp; Beige Plastic Figure Top Hat Monocle\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/rare-vintage-1960s-4h-decal-sticker-unopened-walterboro-sc\"\u003eVintage 1960s 4H Club Decal 🍀 Embla Crest Four Leaf Clover Foil Sticker, Unopened\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43018500735208,"sku":"VAG-7735713366248","price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4123877473_7czy.jpg?v=1785356604"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-tennis-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures","title":"Vintage 1980s Tennis California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember the California Raisins? 🎾 The Tennis California Raisin Tin Pin, 1980s\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-8onRsTOzgA\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eTennis California Raisin tin pin from the 1980s - WOW, the memories! This Raisin is ready for Wimbledon: orange sunglasses, a yellow racket held high in one glove, a tennis ball in the other, and orange-and-white sneakers. Game, set, raisin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have to say WOW one more time. Seeing these brought it all back, and I went straight to YouTube and watched every Raisin video ever made. And I'll say it: there's nothing better than a California Raisin singing you a song!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a round tin pin with the picture printed right on the metal, and the back is painted cream with a gold-tone safety pin held on by two little metal tabs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🍇 The Band\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe band members all had names - A.C. Arborman on vocals, younger brother Beebop Arborman on drums, cousin Red Raisin on guitar and piano, and their friend Stamford \"Stretch\" Thompson on bass.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🛍️ The Raisins Craze\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOnce the Raisins hit with \"I Heard It Through the Grapevine,\" they were on everything: lunch boxes, notebooks, clothing, posters, bedsheets, even a Halloween costume. A California Raisins Fan Club started in 1987 with its own newsletter, the Grapevine Gazette, and Blackthorne Publishing put out a six-issue California Raisins 3-D comic with the glasses included. The Raisins sold Post Raisin Bran, and Hardee's handed out little Raisin figures with its Cinnamon 'N' Raisin biscuits in 1987, 1988 and 1991, and again in 2001.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCapcom even made a Nintendo game, The California Raisins: The Grape Escape, with five side-scrolling levels against evil fruits and vegetables who had stolen the Raisins' music. It was finished and reviewed, and then never released. The whole ride ended on July 31, 1994, when the California Raisin Advisory Board collapsed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey were created in 1986, and apparently they've been turning up at events and in cameos all these years - news to me. I've been missing out! You'll see people calling these 1970s pins - it isn't possible.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are so highly collectible that the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History keeps the California Raisins in its permanent collection. I'm sure the Smithsonian would be proud of a piece like this!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📦 About the Supply\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA heads-up: these were found sitting together in big boxes in a warehouse for 40 years~ then moved, so a few might carry a mark or blemish. Most people list them as new - if you know me, you know I'm meticulous about condition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat kind of nostalgia isn't going anywhere, so grab one to show off at home or wear just for fun. The supply is finite - once these last Tennis Raisin pins from that warehouse find are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-vocal-solo-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Vocal Solo California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-surfer-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage Surfer California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories! 1980s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-hog-head-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Hog Head Gross-Out Monster Pin 📌 Buck-Toothed Pig Face Pinback Button, Weird Retro Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43386389692648,"sku":"VAG-7845892063464","price":5.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3430692340_pqb0_8804343f-b015-4e93-aeae-af8b8426cb4e.jpg?v=1785356764"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-jazz-hands-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures","title":"Vintage 1980s Jazz Hands California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember the California Raisins' Jazz Hands? 🙌 The Jazz Hands California Raisin Tin Pin, 1980s\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/J4_A4k1IEt4\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eJazz Hands California Raisin tin pin from the 1980s - WOW, the memories! Both big white gloves are up, palms out, fingers spread, and he's got a sly grin, droopy blue eyes with pink lids, skinny black arms and legs and blue-and-white high-tops. Showtime!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWOW, again - the second I saw these it all came rushing back, and I ended up on YouTube watching every Raisin video there is. And honestly, nothing beats a song sung by a California Raisin!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a round tin pin with the picture printed right on the metal, and the back is painted cream with a gold-tone safety pin held on by two little metal tabs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🍇 The Band\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEach Raisin had a name and a personality: A.C. Arborman sang, his kid brother Beebop Arborman played drums, cousin Red Raisin played guitar and piano, and their buddy Stamford \"Stretch\" Thompson played bass.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🎬 Will Vinton and His Claymation\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe man who made the Raisins move was Will Vinton, born in McMinnville, Oregon in 1947. He and clay animator Bob Gardiner started out in his Portland basement, and in 1975 their film Closed Mondays won the Academy Award for Best Animated Short Film, the first film made in Portland ever to win one. Vinton later trademarked the word Claymation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHis studio built the Raisins, and a lot more: the Domino's Pizza Noid and the M\u0026amp;M's characters came out of the same shop. The Raisins sang \"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer\" in Will Vinton's Claymation Christmas Celebration in 1987, which won the Emmy. In 2005 the studio was renamed Laika, the company behind Coraline. Vinton was nominated for five Academy Awards in all.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe California Raisins came along in 1986, and it turns out they've kept popping up for events and cameos ever since without my knowing it. I've been missing out! Some folks list these pins as 1970s, but that can't be right.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are so highly collectible that the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History keeps the California Raisins in its permanent collection. I'm sure the Smithsonian would be proud to have this one!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📦 About the Supply\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJust so you know, the supply these came from sat in big boxes in a warehouse for 40 years~ and then got moved, so some may have a mark or a blemish. Most sellers call them new, but if you follow me you know I'm picky about condition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNobody's getting over the Raisins any time soon, so this is a great chance to put one on display or wear it for fun. The supply is finite - once these last Jazz Hands Raisin pins from that warehouse find are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-surfer-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage Surfer California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories! 1980s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-dancing-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Dancing California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-all-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s All Me California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43386492616936,"sku":"VAG-7845901271272","price":5.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4030214751_1cms.jpg?v=1785356774"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-surfer-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures","title":"Vintage Surfer California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories! 1980s","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember the Surfing California Raisin? 🏄 The Surfer California Raisin Tin Pin, 1980s\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Js9MSVEAJBA\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eSurfer California Raisin tin pin from the 1980s - WOW, the memories! This Raisin is hanging ten on a red surfboard, riding right through the curl of a big blue wave with his gloves out for balance and a grin on his face. California all the way.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWOW, again - the second I saw these it all came rushing back, and I ended up on YouTube watching every Raisin video there is. And honestly, nothing beats a song sung by a California Raisin!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a round tin pin with the picture printed right on the metal, and the back is painted cream with a gold-tone safety pin held on by two little metal tabs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🍇 The Band\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEach Raisin had a name and a personality: A.C. Arborman sang, his kid brother Beebop Arborman played drums, cousin Red Raisin played guitar and piano, and their buddy Stamford \"Stretch\" Thompson played bass.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e☀️ Where California Raisins Come From\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe real raisins behind the band come from the San Joaquin Valley around Fresno. In 1873 Francis T. Eisen planted an experimental vineyard of Muscat grapes near Fresno, packaged raisins were shipping out of the state by 1878, and by 1903 California was producing 120 million pounds a year. In 1912 the growers formed the California Associated Raisin Company, and in 1914 they launched the Sun-Maid brand with a train of 60 freight cars of raisins headed for Chicago, every car carrying the banner \"Raisins Grown by 6,000 California Growers.\" The original Sun-Maid Girl was a real person, Lorraine Collett, who handed out raisin samples at the 1915 Panama-Pacific International Exposition in San Francisco.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAnd for some old raisin lore: for centuries people played a Christmas Eve parlor game called snap-dragon. Raisins went into a bowl of warm brandy, the brandy was lit, the lights went down, and everybody snatched raisins out of the blue flames. Samuel Johnson put it in his 1755 dictionary as \"a play in which they catch raisins out of burning brandy.\" Our Raisin here would rather go surfing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe California Raisins came along in 1986, and it turns out they've kept popping up for events and cameos ever since without my knowing it. I've been missing out! Some folks list these pins as 1970s, but that can't be right.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are so highly collectible that the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History keeps the California Raisins in its permanent collection. I'm sure the Smithsonian would be proud to have this one!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📦 About the Supply\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJust so you know, the supply these came from sat in big boxes in a warehouse for 40 years~ and then got moved, so some may have a mark or a blemish. Most sellers call them new, but if you follow me you know I'm picky about condition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNobody's getting over the Raisins any time soon, so this is a great chance to put one on display or wear it for fun. The supply is finite - once these last Surfer Raisin pins from that warehouse find are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-jazz-hands-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Jazz Hands California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-pointing-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Pointing California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-all-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s All Me California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43386540523752,"sku":"VAG-7845924471016","price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3982565726_79qg.jpg?v=1785356781"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-all-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures","title":"Vintage 1980s All Me California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember the California Raisins' All Me Pin? 😎 The All Me California Raisin Tin Pin, 1980s\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/JwB8DnJqDgU\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eAll Me California Raisin tin pin from the 1980s - WOW, the memories! This is the Raisin who knows he's the star of the show. He's got his red shades on and both big white gloves pointed right back at himself, knees bent, in red-and-white high-top sneakers. It's all me, baby.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne more WOW from me - these brought the memories pouring back, and next thing I knew I'd watched every California Raisins video on YouTube. Nothing - and I mean nothing - beats hearing a California Raisin sing!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a round tin pin with the picture printed right on the metal, and the back is painted cream with a gold-tone safety pin held on by two little metal tabs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🎬 \"Everything but Dancing Raisins\"\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe raisin growers had tried just about every kind of ad there was. Then in 1986 a writer at Foote, Cone \u0026amp; Belding in San Francisco named Seth Werner said, \"We have tried everything but dancing raisins singing 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine.'\" Somebody took him seriously. Will Vinton's studio in Portland, Oregon, the folks who coined the word Claymation, built the Raisins out of clay with character designs by Michael Brunsfeld, and that first 30-second commercial cost $300,000 to develop and test. It was a smash, and it's credited with lifting raisin sales by 20 percent. The next year the Raisins sang \"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer\" in A Claymation Christmas Celebration, which won an Emmy, and on November 4, 1988 CBS gave them their own prime-time special, Meet the Raisins!, which was nominated for one. The big stars wanted in, too. Ray Charles got his own clay raisin, \"Raisin Ray,\" and in July 1989 Michael Jackson showed up in clay as himself and as \"Michael Raisin,\" glove and fedora and all, in a spot that ran in 5,700 movie theaters before it ever hit TV. The museums took notice, too: The Henry Ford in Dearborn keeps a 1988 California Raisins advertising poster and the original character artwork Dawn Nori drew for Will Vinton Productions and Applause Licensing, and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences keeps a Will Vinton Collection of more than 200 items from his films.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🍇 The Band\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey even got names and characters of their own: A.C. Arborman out front singing, his little brother Beebop Arborman on the drums, cousin Red Raisin on guitar and piano, and pal Stamford \"Stretch\" Thompson on bass.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🎤 The Albums, the End and the Missing Head\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Raisins put out four albums: The California Raisins (also called The California Raisins Sing the Hit Songs) in 1987, which reached number 60, then Sweet, Delicious, \u0026amp; Marvelous, Meet the Raisins! and Christmas with The California Raisins, all in 1988. The drummer and singer Buddy Miles, who had played in Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys and recorded with Carlos Santana, sang most of the leads, starting with \"I Heard It Through the Grapevine.\" The Smithsonian's National Museum of American History notes that Will Vinton's clay figures were first developed in 1986 as caricatures of African American rhythm-and-blues groups.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBut fame cost a fortune. The raisin growers paid for the whole campaign through the California Raisin Advisory Board, and they grew alarmed at the ever-rising fees as more and more money went back into commercials and merchandise. The board collapsed, and the Raisins were retired on July 31, 1994. Their trademarks and copyrights went to the State of California, which has licensed them since 1998 to the new California Raisin Marketing Board. Even the original clay puppets had a rough time. They sat in a box for years and were headed for the trash before Webster Colcord, a former Vinton animator, saved them, and when he photographed them the A.C. puppet was missing its head. A live-action and CGI reboot was announced in 2015, and it never came to anything, so pins like this one are how the Raisins live on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Raisins date from 1986, and they've been making appearances and cameos on and off ever since, which I somehow missed. I've been missing out! I've seen these sold as 1970s, but that just can't be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are so highly collectible that the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History keeps the California Raisins in its permanent collection. Here's one I'm certain the Smithsonian would be proud to show!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📦 About the Supply\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGood to know: the batch these came out of spent 40 years~ in big warehouse boxes before it was moved, so some may show a mark or blemish. Plenty of folks call these new, but anyone who follows me knows how fussy I am about condition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe love for these isn't fading any time soon - display it, or pin it on and have some fun. The supply is finite - once these last All Me Raisin pins from that warehouse find are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-trombone-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-1980s-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Saxophone California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-surfer-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage Surfer California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories! 1980s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-pointing-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Pointing California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43386548322536,"sku":"VAG-7845927059688","price":5.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4030231393_994k.jpg?v=1785356790"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-vocal-solo-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures","title":"Vintage 1980s Vocal Solo California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember the California Raisins Singing Solo? 🎤 The Vocal Solo California Raisin Tin Pin, 1980s\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xUU4iQ7yZhg\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eVintage Vocal Solo California Raisin Tin Pin, WOW The Memories! This Raisin is in the middle of his big number. His eyes are closed, his mouth is wide open, he's wearing a little blue bow tie, and he's gripping a red-and-yellow microphone in one white-gloved hand while the other hand shoots up in the air. White sneakers, a plain white background, and nothing but soul. If he isn't A.C. himself, the band's lead singer, he's doing a mighty good impression.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have to say WOW again. Seeing these brought the memories flooding back, and I went straight to YouTube and watched every Raisin video there is. And let me add nothing is better than listening to a song sung by a California Raisin!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe picture is printed right on the tin, and the back is painted a pale cream with a gold-tone safety pin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🍇 The Band\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCalifornia Raisins were given individual names and characterizations: A.C. Arborman (vocals), his younger brother Beebop Arborman (drums), their cousin Red Raisin (guitar\/piano), and their friend Stamford \"Stretch\" Thompson (bass). Those names and parts came from Meet the Raisins!, the CBS special that aired on November 4, 1988.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🎶 The Voice Behind the Raisin\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe California Raisins were invented in 1986 and seem to pop up and do events and cameos over the years unbeknownst to me. I've been missing out! I have seen some people say these pins are from the 1970s but it isn't possible.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe real lead singer was no joke. Buddy Miles, born in Omaha, Nebraska in 1947, whose father played upright bass for Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Charlie Parker, was a founding member of the Electric Flag, which made its live debut at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967, and he played drums in Jimi Hendrix's Band of Gypsys in 1969 and 1970. He met Hendrix at 16, when they were both sidemen at a show in Montreal. Twenty years later he was singing lead for a bunch of clay raisins on TV, and he recorded two California Raisins albums of rhythm and blues.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Raisins came out of the San Francisco office of Foote, Cone \u0026amp; Belding for the California Raisin Advisory Board, and Will Vinton's studio animated them in clay. The group put out four albums in 1987 and 1988, full of Motown and rock standards, with Ellis Hall and Niki Haris taking the occasional lead and Howard McCrary, Howard Smith and Leslie Smith singing backup. \"I Heard It Through the Grapevine\" reached number 84 on the Billboard Hot 100, and in 1987 they sang \"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer\" in the Emmy-winning A Claymation Christmas Celebration. It all wound down in 1994 when the Raisin Advisory Board folded.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are so highly collectible that the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History keeps California Raisins in its permanent collection, from the original pencil sketches and clay armatures to the albums. Here is a piece for you that the Smithsonian I am sure would be proud of!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📦 About the Supply\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHeads up on condition: they spent some 40 years jumbled together in big boxes in a warehouse before they were moved, so you may find a mark or blemish here and there. Plenty of sellers list these as new, but anyone who follows me knows I'm meticulous about condition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe nostalgia for these isn't going to go away any time soon, so this is a great opportunity to display it as decor or wear it for fun. Put it on a jean jacket, a guitar strap or a record shelf, or give it to anybody who can still sing every word of Grapevine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-tennis-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Tennis California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-pointing-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Pointing California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-all-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s All Me California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43386552353000,"sku":"VAG-7845929386216","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4030243807_9ei3.jpg?v=1785356800"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-pointing-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures","title":"Vintage 1980s Pointing California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember the Pointing California Raisin? 👆 The Pointing California Raisin Tin Pin, 1980s\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kRQb2hJyBtQ\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003ePointing California Raisin tin pin from the 1980s - WOW, the memories! This Raisin has his finger pointed straight up to the sky and his other white-gloved hand pointed at the floor, with a big toothy grin, sleepy red-and-blue eyes and blue high-top sneakers. It's the classic disco point, and I can't look at it without hearing the bass line.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have to say WOW one more time. Seeing these brought it all back, and I went straight to YouTube and watched every Raisin video ever made. And I'll say it: there's nothing better than a California Raisin singing you a song!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a round tin pin with the picture printed right on the metal, and the back is painted cream with a gold-tone safety pin held on by two little metal tabs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🍇 The Band\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe band members all had names - A.C. Arborman on vocals, younger brother Beebop Arborman on drums, cousin Red Raisin on guitar and piano, and their friend Stamford \"Stretch\" Thompson on bass.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🎵 The Song Behind the Raisins\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe whole thing started with a song. \"I Heard It Through the Grapevine\" was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong for Motown in 1966. The Miracles recorded it first, on August 6, 1966, but Motown sat on it. Gladys Knight \u0026amp; the Pips put it out as a single in September 1967, and it went to number one on the R\u0026amp;B chart and number two on the pop chart and became the biggest-selling Motown single up to then. Marvin Gaye had cut his version back in early 1967, and when Berry Gordy finally released it as a single in October 1968, it sat at number one on the pop chart for seven weeks. Creedence Clearwater Revival stretched it into an eleven-minute jam in 1970, and in 1998 it went into the Grammy Hall of Fame.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen in 1986, Seth Werner, a writer at the Foote, Cone \u0026amp; Belding ad agency in San Francisco, California, joked that they had \"tried everything but dancing raisins singing 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine,'\" and the California Raisin Advisory Board took him up on it. The Raisins' own version made the Billboard Hot 100 too.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey were created in 1986, and apparently they've been turning up at events and in cameos all these years - news to me. I've been missing out! You'll see people calling these 1970s pins - it isn't possible.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are so highly collectible that the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History keeps the California Raisins in its permanent collection. I'm sure the Smithsonian would be proud of a piece like this!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📦 About the Supply\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA heads-up: these were found sitting together in big boxes in a warehouse for 40 years~ then moved, so a few might carry a mark or blemish. Most people list them as new - if you know me, you know I'm meticulous about condition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat kind of nostalgia isn't going anywhere, so grab one to show off at home or wear just for fun. The supply is finite - once these last Pointing Raisin pins from that warehouse find are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-dancing-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Dancing California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-surfer-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage Surfer California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories! 1980s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-all-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s All Me California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43386557202664,"sku":"VAG-7845931221224","price":5.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.3982598774_7lwm.jpg?v=1785356808"},{"product_id":"vintage-trombone-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-1980s-treasures","title":"Vintage 1980s Saxophone California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember the California Raisins? 🎷 Vintage 1980s Saxophone Raisin Tin Pin\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BjCmcAd7o08\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎷 The Band So Big It Broke the Board That Built It\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eFor eight years a clay band of raisins was all over American television, and the fame is exactly what finished them. The California Raisins sold platinum records, Hardee's figures, lunch boxes and tin buttons, but every commercial was paid for by the raisin growers of Fresno, California, out of their own crop. On July 31, 1994 the California Raisin Advisory Board closed its doors for good. Today the Smithsonian keeps the clay. This saxophone man is what's left for the rest of us to hold.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eI need to just say WOW again. When I saw these the memories came flooding back, and I went to YouTube and watched every single Raisin video ever. And let me add: nothing is better than listening to a song sung by a California Raisin!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📌 The Pin\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eA round tin pinback button, 1 1\/2\", printed with a single California Raisin on a plain white face. Brown wrinkled body, white cartoon gloves wrapped around a bright yellow saxophone, blue eyelids shut tight, black-and-white shoes planted mid-note. He is the band's horn man, leaning into a solo with his eyes closed. On the back is a gold-tone safety-pin clasp, so it wears as easily as it displays.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe Busy Beaver Button Museum, an archive devoted entirely to pinback buttons, catalogs a California Raisins saxophone button of this description (a raisin in black-and-white shoes playing a yellow sax on a white ground) alongside Raisins buttons showing a singer, a football player, a skateboarder and a hot tub scene.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eI have seen some people say these pins are from the 1970s, but it isn't possible. The California Raisins did not exist until 1986, and these came out of the Raisins' heyday in the 1980s.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🍇 Fresno, and the Legend of the Accidental Raisin\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe story Fresno tells about itself goes like this. Francis Eisen, a Swedish immigrant, planted a vineyard along Fancher Creek east of Fresno in 1873 with his brother Gustav, meaning to make wine. Then a brutal heat wave rolled through the San Joaquin Valley just before harvest and dried the Muscat grapes right on the vine. Rather than lose the crop, Eisen packed the shriveled fruit and took it to San Francisco, where it was sold as an exotic import. In the most-repeated version of the legend, a grocer there put them out as \"Peruvian Delicacies.\" Tellers disagree on whether the heat came in 1873 or 1877. Either way, a ruined harvest became an industry.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe women came next, and history mostly forgot them. Minnie Austin, a Nantucket-born schoolteacher, and fellow teacher Lucy Hatch had burned out in the classrooms of Chicago and San Francisco. They bought into M. Theo Kearney's Central California Colony and planted the Hedgerow Vineyard on Elm Avenue, with two more teachers, E.A. Cleveland and J.B. Short, as silent partners. Austin and Hatch shipped their first raisin crop in 1878 under the Austin brand, likely the first packaged raisins ever sent out of Fresno, and by 1886 they were shipping 7,500 boxes a year. They were the first to sulfur their vines at bloom and the first to use a raisin dehydrator. Austin died in 1889. Hatch lived until 1926 and spent her last years urging growers to stay united under the Sun-Maid banner.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThat banner was born in the same valley. The name Sun-Maid was coined in 1915 by advertising man E.A. Berg, and the girl in the red bonnet was a real young woman, Lorraine Collett, who handed out raisins at San Francisco's Panama-Pacific International Exposition that year. In 1918 Sun-Maid opened a plant near downtown Fresno. By the early 1980s, though, raisins had become a hard sell, and the growers needed something nobody had tried.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🔍 What Is Printed on This Button\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNothing but the picture. The face carries the saxophone Raisin and no lettering at all — no maker, no license line, no date. Worth saying plainly, because the same artwork was also printed on a button that reads \u003cem\u003eThe California Raisins™\u003c\/em\u003e in blue script with \u003cem\u003e©1987 CALRAB\u003c\/em\u003e beneath it. That marked button is a different piece from this one; this is the unmarked printing.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎬 \"We Have Tried Everything But Dancing Raisins\"\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe California Raisin Advisory Board, known as CALRAB, was a state marketing board headquartered in Fresno. Growers paid into it to regulate and promote the whole California crop rather than any single brand, and the new campaign got off the ground with an initial $3 million grant from the United States Department of Agriculture. CALRAB took the job to the San Francisco office of the ad agency Foote, Cone \u0026amp; Belding.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThere, the story goes, a 31-year-old copywriter named Seth Werner, working with his partner Dexter Fedor, threw out a line in frustration: they had tried everything but dancing raisins singing \"I Heard It Through the Grapevine.\" The joke became the pitch. The job went to Will Vinton Studios in Portland, Oregon, the Oscar-winning animation house that had built its name on Claymation, and Michael Brunsfeld drew the character designs. The first 30-second spot cost about $300,000 to make and aired on September 14, 1986. Sunglasses on, high-tops laced, the Raisins shuffled through Marvin Gaye's hit, and raisin sales rose 20 percent after it aired.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe voice was the real thing. Lead vocals came from Buddy Miles, the drummer and singer who had played alongside Jimi Hendrix in the Band of Gypsys. That is a big part of why the Raisins sounded like a soul act instead of a jingle.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📀 Platinum Albums, Hardee's Figures and an Emmy\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe Raisins stopped being a commercial and became a band. Their \"Grapevine\" reached No. 84 on the Billboard Hot 100. Four albums followed across 1987 and 1988, two of them went platinum, and more than 2 million people bought Raisins records, with covers like \"Lean on Me\" and \"You Can't Hurry Love.\" Hardee's gave away collectible Raisins figures in 1987, 1988 and 1991. Among the licensed Raisins collectibles of the day, the toy company Applause made the little PVC figures marked CALRAB in 1987 and 1988. There were plush toys, air fresheners, comic books and a fan club. Capcom even built a Nintendo game, The California Raisins: The Grape Escape; it was finished and reviewed by critics but never released.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eTelevision came calling. Will Vinton's \u003cem\u003eA Claymation Christmas Celebration\u003c\/em\u003e (1987), featuring the Raisins, won a Primetime Emmy. On November 4, 1988 CBS aired the mockumentary \u003cem\u003eMeet the Raisins!\u003c\/em\u003e, which was nominated for an Emmy and gave the core band full names: A.C. Arborman on vocals, his younger brother Beebop Arborman on drums, their cousin Red Raisin on guitar and piano, and their friend Stamford \"Stretch\" Thompson on bass. Stamford! I love that the bass man got the fanciest name in the band. \u003cem\u003eThe California Raisin Show\u003c\/em\u003e cartoon ran 13 episodes in 1989. Ray Charles and Michael Jackson each recorded their own version of \"Grapevine\" for later commercials, and Jackson, by the popular account, did it for free on the condition that he work with Vinton, whom he knew from Disney's Captain EO.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the original run of figures, the man on this pin is simply the Saxophone Player: eyes closed, cheeks puffed, leaning back into the blues. When Hardee's first handed out four Raisins figures in 1987, at 99 cents apiece with its Cinnamon 'N' Raisin biscuits, the other three got pun names (Tiny Goodbite the singer, and the dancers Justin X. Grape and Ben Indasun), and my horn man was just the Saxophone Player. Somehow that suits him. He lets the sax do the talking.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📉 How the Fame Became the Problem\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThis is the part most people never heard. CALRAB was a nonprofit, so it could not keep what the Raisins earned. It poured the proceeds from the campaign back into more advertising, costs climbed with every new spot, and by the end the campaign was costing growers almost twice what it brought them. Growers revolted over the fees they were required to pay, and the board ended on July 31, 1994, citing irreconcilable differences among its members. The characters became property of the State of California. In 1998 a new grower-funded California Raisin Marketing Board was formed and licensed them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏛️ The Smithsonian, and the Whole Legacy\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe Smithsonian's National Museum of American History holds a sculpted clay California Raisin, Claymation props and wire armatures, sixteen original pencil sketches from the campaign, a Raisins T-shirt and a school friends collector album. The museum's own record describes the figures as developed by Will Vinton Productions in 1986 \"based on caricatures of African American rhythm-and-blues groups.\" That belongs in the story too. The campaign changed the fortunes of a Central Valley crop, and it did it by borrowing its whole sound from Black music: Marvin Gaye's song, Buddy Miles's voice, Ray Charles's cameo. In June 2025 Michigan State University scholars Ed Timke and Christina L. Myers presented \"Consuming Black Culture: The Materiality and Cultural Exploitation of the California Raisins Campaign\" at CHARM, a marketing-history conference in London, examining how the beloved campaign intersected with cultural appropriation, commercial exploitation and representation.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThese are so collectible that the Smithsonian keeps California Raisins material in its collection. Here is an instant collection for you that I am sure the Smithsonian would be proud of!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eThe supply that was found of these was in a warehouse, all together in big boxes for 40 years~, then moved, so some might have a mark or blemish. Most who have these list them as new, but as you know if you follow me, I am meticulous about the condition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🖼️ Good For\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\n\u003cul\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eA denim jacket, tote or band bag. The safety-pin clasp works the way it was made to.\u003c\/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eAn 1980s pop culture shadow box next to cereal-box prizes and Saturday morning memorabilia.\u003c\/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eA record room or practice space, for anybody who plays the horn.\u003c\/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eA California agriculture or Central Valley history display beside a Sun-Maid box.\u003c\/li\u003e\n \u003cli\u003eA gift for anyone who still hums \"Grapevine\" when they open a box of raisins.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\n\u003chr\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🎷 About these\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's the saxophone player, eyes shut, horn up - the one from the Raisins' original line-up of figures - and it still pins on a jacket or a backpack just like it did in the 80s, or it can go in a shadow box with your Hardee's figures. The supply is finite - nobody's making California Raisins tin pins again, and once these last ones are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-all-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s All Me California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-jazz-hands-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Jazz Hands California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-surfer-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage Surfer California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories! 1980s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43386571358440,"sku":"VAG-7845933154536","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4030266459_m6k5.jpg?v=1785356816"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-cool-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures","title":"Vintage Groovy California Raisin 🍇 Tin Pin","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember the Groovy California Raisin? 🕺 The Groovy California Raisin Tin Pin, 1980s\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/s_UL6pyP4r4\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eVintage Groovy California Raisin Tin Pin, WOW The Memories! This Raisin is really feeling it: head tilted, sleepy red-and-blue eyes, mouth open mid-note, one white glove up by his face and the other pointing, knees bent in his blue high-top sneakers. Pure groove.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne more WOW from me - these brought the memories pouring back, and next thing I knew I'd watched every California Raisins video on YouTube. Nothing - and I mean nothing - beats hearing a California Raisin sing!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a round tin pin with the picture printed right on the metal, and the back is painted cream with a gold-tone safety pin held on by two little metal tabs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🍇 The Band\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThey even got names and characters of their own: A.C. Arborman out front singing, his little brother Beebop Arborman on the drums, cousin Red Raisin on guitar and piano, and pal Stamford \"Stretch\" Thompson on bass.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📺 From a Commercial to Prime Time\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Raisins were dreamed up at the Foote, Cone \u0026amp; Belding ad agency in San Francisco, California for the California Raisin Advisory Board and brought to life in clay by Will Vinton's studio, and Michael Brunsfeld designed the characters. The first 30-second commercial, with the Raisins singing \"I Heard It Through the Grapevine,\" cost $300,000 to develop and test, and it became the start of a craze. The drummer and singer Buddy Miles sang most of the leads, and the group put out four albums in 1987 and 1988.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn November 4, 1988, CBS aired a primetime special, Meet the Raisins!, a musical mockumentary that was nominated for an Emmy and gave the band their names and parts. A Saturday morning cartoon, The California Raisin Show, followed in 1989 and ran 13 episodes, and a second special, Raisins: Sold Out!, came in 1990. Not bad for a box of dried grapes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Raisins date from 1986, and they've been making appearances and cameos on and off ever since, which I somehow missed. I've been missing out! I've seen these sold as 1970s, but that just can't be.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are so highly collectible that the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History keeps the California Raisins in its permanent collection. Here's one I'm certain the Smithsonian would be proud to show!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📦 About the Supply\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eGood to know: the batch these came out of spent 40 years~ in big warehouse boxes before it was moved, so some may show a mark or blemish. Plenty of folks call these new, but anyone who follows me knows how fussy I am about condition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe love for these isn't fading any time soon - display it, or pin it on and have some fun. The supply is finite - once these last Groovy Raisin pins from that warehouse find are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-surfer-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage Surfer California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories! 1980s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-pointing-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Pointing California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-jazz-hands-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Jazz Hands California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43386573783272,"sku":"VAG-7845933842664","price":5.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4030276227_7t9j.jpg?v=1785356823"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-dancing-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures","title":"Vintage 1980s Dancing California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember the Dancing California Raisins? 🍇 The Dancing California Raisin Tin Pin, 1980s\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/yEFIyFhWGR8\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eVintage Dancing California Raisin Tin Pin, WOW The Memories! One of the Raisins is striking a pose on a cream background: red sunglasses, big white cartoon gloves, red-and-white high-top sneakers, one finger pointed at the ceiling and the other hand pointed at the floor. If you can look at him without hearing \"I Heard It Through the Grapevine\" in your head, you're doing better than me.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eI have to say WOW again. Seeing these brought the memories flooding back, and I went straight to YouTube and watched every Raisin video there is. And let me add nothing is better than listening to a song sung by a California Raisin!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a round tin pin with the picture printed right on the metal. The back is painted cream, with a gold-tone safety pin held on by two little metal tabs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🎤 Meet the Band\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCalifornia Raisins were given individual names and characterizations: A.C. Arborman (vocals), his younger brother Beebop Arborman (drums), their cousin Red Raisin (guitar\/piano), and their friend Stamford \"Stretch\" Thompson (bass). They got those names in Meet the Raisins!, a primetime CBS special that aired on November 4, 1988 and was nominated for an Emmy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📺 How a Box of Raisins Became a Motown Act\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe California Raisins were invented in 1986 and seem to pop up and do events and cameos over the years unbeknownst to me. I've been missing out! I have seen some people say these pins are from the 1970s but it isn't possible. I obviously went and read up on them too, and here's what I found.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe idea came out of the San Francisco office of the ad agency Foote, Cone \u0026amp; Belding, working for the California Raisin Advisory Board, when one of the writers, Seth Werner, joked that they had \"tried everything but dancing raisins singing 'I Heard It Through the Grapevine.'\" That was the 1968 song made famous by Marvin Gaye and by Gladys Knight \u0026amp; the Pips. Will Vinton's studio brought the raisins to life in clay, with characters designed by Michael Brunsfeld, and the first 30-second commercial cost $300,000 to develop and test. Nobody expected what happened next. The spot was a smash, and the drummer and singer Buddy Miles became the Raisins' lead voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1987 they sang \"Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer\" in the Emmy-winning A Claymation Christmas Celebration. They put out four albums in 1987 and 1988, and \"I Heard It Through the Grapevine\" made the Billboard Hot 100, peaking at number 84. A fan club started in 1987 with its own newsletter, the Grapevine Gazette. Hardee's gave away little Raisin figures with its Cinnamon 'N' Raisin biscuits in 1987, 1988 and 1991, the Raisins sold Post Raisin Bran, and CBS gave them a Saturday morning cartoon, The California Raisin Show, in 1989. Their faces went on lunch boxes, notebooks, posters, bedsheets and just about anything else you could print on.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ride ended on July 31, 1994, when the California Raisin Advisory Board collapsed. Growers were fed up with the fees that paid for all those commercials. The Raisins' trademarks and copyrights went to the State of California, which has licensed them since 1998 to the new California Raisin Marketing Board. The original clay puppets had a close call too. They sat in a box for years and were headed for the trash before a former Vinton animator, Webster Colcord, rescued them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are so highly collectible that the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History put the California Raisins in its permanent collection, from Vinton's pencil sketches, clay figures and armatures to a Raisins T-shirt and a School Friends collector album. Here is a piece for you that the Smithsonian I am sure would be proud of!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📦 Where These Came From\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHeads up on condition: they spent some 40 years jumbled together in big boxes in a warehouse before they were moved, so you may find a mark or blemish here and there. Plenty of sellers list these as new, but anyone who follows me knows I'm meticulous about condition.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe nostalgia for these isn't going to go away any time soon, so this is a great opportunity to display it as decor or wear it for fun. Pin it on a jean jacket, a lunch box or a cork board, or give it to anybody who ever danced along to the Raisins on TV.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-pointing-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Pointing California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-jazz-hands-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Jazz Hands California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories!\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-surfer-california-raisin-tin-pin-wow-memories-treasures\"\u003eVintage Surfer California Raisin Tin Pin 📌 WOW The Memories! 1980s\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43386575454440,"sku":"VAG-7845934301416","price":5.5,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4030287067_dici.jpg?v=1785356832"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-pin-jordan-knight-boston-ma-nkotb-jazz-hands","title":"Vintage New Kids on the Block Pin 🎤 Jordan Knight Jazz Hands Button, NOS 1989 Big Step Productions","description":"\u003ch2\u003eHow Did New Kids on the Block Change Trademark Law? 🎤 A Vintage 1989 New Kids on the Block Jordan Knight Jazz Hands Pinback Button, Big Step Productions, Button-Up, Troy, Michigan\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/qOPxKi83wI4\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eIf you were anywhere near a Tiger Beat centerfold or a roller rink in 1989, you know this pose: both hands thrown up, palms out, mid-dance-move grin. Navy double-breasted blazer, white turtleneck, cream background, and NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK across the bottom in red. No name is printed on it, but this is the portrait collectors have always called Jordan Knight. Around the rim in red: ©1989 BIG STEP PRODUCTIONS, INC. and BUTTON-UP 2011 AUSTIN TROY, MI 48083 - the 2011 is a street number, not a year. Cream back, bar pin, never worn.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e💼 Big Step and the button business\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBig Step Productions was the New Kids' own production and merchandising company, and buttons weren't an afterthought for it - when Big Step filed for federal trademarks in May 1990, the goods it listed included ornamental buttons and pins and oversized novelty buttons. It also co-produced the band's 1990 Saturday morning cartoon on ABC. By 1991 the band's merchandise was estimated at $400 million a year, and Forbes put the New Kids at the top of its list of highest-paid entertainers, ahead of Michael Jackson and Madonna. A button off a concert table or a mall rack was one tiny piece of that.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e⚖️ The case that changed trademark law\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere's the part that reaches way past pop music. In 1990 Big Step, the band and its management sued USA Today and The Star over newspaper 900-number polls asking readers to vote for their favorite New Kid, saying the papers were cashing in on the band's name. They lost. In 1992 Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth Circuit wrote the opinion in New Kids on the Block v. News America Publishing that created nominative fair use - you can use somebody's trademark to name them, as long as you don't suggest they endorse you. Law students still learn it, and it exists because five kids from Boston got so big that even naming them was a business.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🎶 Jordan\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJordan Knight, born May 17, 1970, was the lead voice of the group, the falsetto on the big ballads, and the younger brother of Jonathan, who was in the band too. Hangin' Tough took its time - it came out in 1988 and climbed for more than a year before it hit No. 1 on the Billboard 200 in 1989 - and by then I'll Be Loving You (Forever), with Jordan out front, had already been a No. 1 single that June.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e📌 Button-Up of Michigan\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eButton-Up made licensed band buttons through the 1980s - its 1984 buttons give an address on Ryan Road in Warren, Michigan, and by the late '80s it had moved up to Austin in Troy, just north of Detroit. This same Jordan design was also sold sealed on Button-Up cards, as part of a series of red-logo New Kids buttons.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🎤 About these\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery one I have is the same unused 1 1\/2 inch button. Pin it on a jean jacket, frame it with a ticket stub, or give it to the friend who always picked Jordan. The supply is finite - nobody's making 1989 Big Step buttons again, and once these last unused ones are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-pin-band-picture-boston-ma-nkotb-tshirt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1989 New Kids on the Block Pinback Button 🎤 Button-Up Troy MI NKOTB Group Photo Pin\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1989-nkotb-new-kids-block-stickers-boston-ma-highly-collectible\"\u003eVintage 1989 New Kids on the Block Sticker Sheet 🎤 NKOTB Big Step Productions Nine-Piece Set\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-band-picture-pin-boston-ma-nkotb-pose-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1989 New Kids on the Block Pinback Button 🎤 \"The Pose\" NKOTB Button-Up Troy MI Metal Pin\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43426058141928,"sku":"VAG-7857657315560","price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4001757274_50rc.jpg?v=1785356968"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-pin-jonathan-knight-boston-ma-nkotb-blue-treasures","title":"Vintage New Kids on the Block Pin 📌 Jonathan Knight, Boston, MA 1980s NKOTB Blue","description":"\u003ch2\u003eStill Remember the Face That Papered Every Locker Door? 🎤 A Vintage 1989 Jonathan Knight New Kids on the Block Pinback Button, Blue Sky\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zZELLIE48pE\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eNo name, no band logo, nothing on the front but Jonathan Knight's big grin against a blue sky with a few white clouds. In 1989 it didn't need a name - every kid in America knew that face. The only printing is around the rim in red: BUTTON-UP 2011 AUSTIN TROY, MI 48083 and ©1989 BIG STEP PRODUCTIONS, INC. The photo sits under a clear cover, with a cream back and a long steel bar pin, and none of these have ever been worn.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e📅 The 1989 is the date\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eDon't let the 2011 throw you - it's the street number of Button-Up's shop on Austin in Troy, and 48083 is the Troy ZIP code. The year is in the copyright line. Big Step Productions held the copyright on the band's merchandise and also co-produced their Saturday morning cartoon with DIC in 1990. Button-Up had been making licensed band buttons since at least the early '80s, first on Ryan Road in Warren - a 1984 Huey Lewis and the News button carries that address - and then up in Troy, in Oakland County just north of Detroit. I get a kick out of that: a Boston band, and the button comes out of a Michigan job shop.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🎤 The quiet one\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eJonathan was the older of the two Knight brothers in New Kids on the Block, alongside Jordan, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood, the group Maurice Starr put together in Boston in 1984. Jordan was the flashy one; fans called Jonathan the quiet one, and plenty of them liked him best for it. Hangin' Tough went to No. 1 on the album chart in 1989, the year on this rim.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn 1994, in the middle of the Face the Music tour, Jonathan left. At the time he said he'd hurt his back when a horse threw him; years later he said the band had slid from arenas to theaters to nightclubs, and he wanted to get on with his own life as a young gay man. In 2000 he talked openly about the generalized anxiety disorder he'd lived with since the early days of the band. He spent the years after fixing up houses, came back for the 2008 reunion, and in March 2021 HGTV premiered Farmhouse Fixer, a show he dreamed up himself, restoring old New England farmhouses with designer Kristina Crestin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e📞 The hotline\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eAsk anybody who was a kid with a landline. In 1989 a company called Info-tainment ran a 1-900 number where fans could hear the band's news for $2 the first minute and 45 cents a minute after, with part of the money going to United Cerebral Palsy. Fans still swear it was taking a hundred thousand calls a week. However many it was, by 1991 the New Kids topped Forbes' list of the highest-paid entertainers, ahead of Michael Jackson and Madonna.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e💃 Before she was J.Lo\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eHere's one collectors love: when New Kids performed Games at the 1991 American Music Awards, one of their backup dancers was a young Jennifer Lopez, just before she became a Fly Girl on In Living Color. She's called that night her break.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e📌 About these\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe photo button goes back to 1896, when Whitehead \u0026amp; Hoag patented the celluloid pinback - a metal shell, a printed picture, a clear cover and a pin - and these are built the same way. Every one I have is this same unused 1 1\/2 inch Jonathan. Put it on a jean jacket, in a shadow box with a ticket stub, or give it to the friend who still says he was the cute one. The supply is finite - nobody's making 1989 Big Step buttons again, and once these last unused ones are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-band-picture-pin-boston-ma-nkotb-pose-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1989 New Kids on the Block Pinback Button 🎤 \"The Pose\" NKOTB Button-Up Troy MI Metal Pin\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990s-new-kids-block-logo-pin-pinback-boston-ma-nkotb-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990s New Kids on the Block Logo Pin Pinback 📌 Boston, MA NKOTB\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-pin-jordan-knight-close-up-boston-ma-nkotb\"\u003eVintage 1980s NKOTB Pin 📌 Jordan Knight Close Up Photo Boston Boy Band Collectible Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43426113880296,"sku":"VAG-7857665769704","price":7.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4049499721_2h9n.jpg?v=1785356977"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-band-picture-pin-boston-ma-nkotb-bat-treasures","title":"Vintage New Kids on the Block Pinback Button 📌 NKOTB Band Photo Pin, Button-Up Troy MI, 80s Boy Band Memorabilia","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember New Kids on the Block's First Days? Before \"Step by Step,\" There Was a School Bus 💙\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/g9x43mrWCKU\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eIn the 1970s, a Dorchester kid named Donnie Wahlberg rode a bus more than half an hour each way across a city at war with itself over school desegregation, to a mostly Black elementary school in Roxbury. On those rides and in that school he fell for soul and rap. A few years later a Boston producer built a group around his rapping, and by 1991 Forbes was calling that group the highest-paid entertainers in America. This vintage New Kids on the Block pinback button carries a ©1989 date on its rim, the year it all broke open: five kids from busing-era Boston in front of a blue sky, one of them with a baseball bat on his shoulder.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📌 What Is on the Button\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe front is a color group photograph of all five New Kids. The one at left, in a red-and-black striped jacket, rests a yellow baseball bat across his shoulder; the one behind him wears a chain with a peace-sign pendant; the one standing at right has a small round badge pinned to his gray jacket lapel. The band name runs across the bottom in red capitals, NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK, with the O in BLOCK drawn as an open ring.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTwo lines are printed in red around the cream rim:\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eBUTTON-UP 2011 AUSTIN TROY, MI 48083\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e©1989 BIG STEP PRODUCTIONS, INC.\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first is the maker's street address, 2011 Austin in Troy, Michigan, not a year. The second is the copyright line that dates the design. The back is cream plastic with a steel bar pin and clasp, and the button measures 1.5 inches across. It is new old stock, never worn.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏢 Big Step Productions: The Name Behind the Merchandise\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat ©1989 line is the same copyright that runs across the New Kids' merchandise boom. Big Step Productions put its name on the 1989 NKOTB trading cards, an 88-card base set, on the 1990 New Kids fashion figures and on an official New Kids scrapbook. It also co-produced, with DIC Animation City, the \u003cem\u003eNew Kids on the Block\u003c\/em\u003e cartoon series that ran on ABC from September 8 to December 14, 1990: 15 episodes in which the band appeared in live-action clips while other actors voiced their animated selves, each show ending on a moral lesson. Disney Channel reran it from October 12, 1991.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🏭 Button-Up of Troy, Michigan\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe maker printed its own address on the rim: 2011 Austin, Troy, Michigan 48083. The same Button-Up of Troy, Michigan name turns up on other novelties of the era, from an \"Over the Hill\" birthday button to California Raisins keyrings marked Applause\/Button-Up. Troy grew from a crossroads called Troy Corners, which took shape after land purchases began in 1819, when Johnson Niles bought 160 acres; its settlers, many from New York, named it after Troy, New York and the ancient city of Troy. It was organized as Troy Township in 1827 and stayed a township for more than a century, until residents incorporated it as a city in 1955, largely to keep neighboring towns from annexing it. About 15 miles north of downtown Detroit in Oakland County, it boomed as a suburb, from 19,402 people in 1960 to 67,102 in 1980, and Kmart kept its headquarters there until 2005.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎤 The Five Kids\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eProducer Maurice Starr and his partner Mary Alford started the group in Boston in 1984, after Starr's split from New Edition, the teen group he had built before. Starr had built New Edition and was dismissed by that group in a dispute over money. Fifteen-year-old Donnie Wahlberg's rapping won Starr over first. Donnie's younger brother Mark came in and soon left, and so did Jamie Kelly. Donnie's friends Jordan Knight and Danny Wood came in, Danny earning Starr's approval by breakdancing, and Jordan's brother Jonathan Knight joined later. To fill Jamie Kelly's spot, Starr wanted a kid who could sing and hold a stage like a young Michael Jackson, and he found him in twelve-year-old Joey McIntyre of Jamaica Plain, who at first did not want to join because the others were all buddies and Dorchester felt too far from home. The older boys gave him a hard time until Donnie told him the group wanted him to shine.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStarr first called them Nynuk, pronounced \"na-nook.\" Columbia Records wanted something else, and in 1986 they became New Kids on the Block, after a rap song Donnie had co-written for their first album.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🎭 The Lore: Prison Gigs and a Kite Festival Riot\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNynuk took any stage it could get: talent shows, social halls, retirement homes. The story the band tells is that they even played a men's prison where one of the Wahlberg brothers was locked up, and won the inmates over by throwing them cigarettes. At the Franklin Park Kite Festival in Boston it went the other way; the crowd started throwing things at them, and Danny Wood's face was cut. Donnie insisted they get back up and finish, later saying it was about believing in themselves and standing their ground.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTheir 1986 debut album flopped. What turned it around was a pop station in Florida that started playing \"Please Don't Go Girl,\" from the September 1988 album \u003cem\u003eHangin' Tough\u003c\/em\u003e. The single climbed to No. 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, and \"I'll Be Loving You (Forever)\" hit No. 1 in June 1989. \"You Got It (The Right Stuff)\" climbed to No. 3 on the Billboard Hot 100. Hangin' Tough went to No. 1 on the Billboard 200, was certified eight-times platinum in the U.S., and has sold more than fifteen million copies worldwide.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🚌 Boston: The Busing Years That Shaped Them\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOn June 21, 1974, in \u003cem\u003eMorgan v. Hennigan\u003c\/em\u003e, federal Judge W. Arthur Garrity Jr. ruled that Boston's public schools were unconstitutionally segregated. Busing began that September. On the first day, only 13 of the 550 South Boston juniors ordered to Roxbury High showed up, state troopers were stationed at South Boston High for three years, and at least 40 riots broke out in the city between September 1974 and the fall of 1976. The courts kept control of the schools until 1988, by which time enrollment had fallen from 93,000 to 57,000.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Wahlbergs, Danny Wood and the Knight brothers were all bused out of Dorchester as elementary-school kids. Donnie's route went to the William Monroe Trotter School in Roxbury, where he fell for the soul and rap his friends there loved, years before he rapped for Maurice Starr.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📈 The Impact: The Biggest Merchandise Machine of Its Day\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\"Step by Step,\" written and produced by Starr, came out May 10, 1990 and spent three weeks at No. 1 on the Hot 100, also reaching No. 1 in Canada and No. 2 in the UK. It became the group's biggest-selling single, with each member singing one \"step\": Danny Wood the first, Donnie the second, Jordan the third, Joey the fourth and Jonathan the fifth. Starr had first recorded the song in 1987 with another of his groups, the Superiors, on Motown, where it went nowhere.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eNew Kids on the Block have sold more than 80 million records worldwide. The band won American Music Awards in 1990, and that summer's Magic Summer Tour grossed $74 million from 3.2 million fans. Their merchandise brought in an estimated $400 million in 1991, the year Forbes put them at the top of its highest-paid entertainers list, ahead of Michael Jackson and Madonna. The Official NKOTB Hotline, 1-900-909-5KID, took roughly 100,000 calls a week, and the fan club passed 200,000 members. Buttons like this one were part of that flood.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe fall came fast. In 1992 a music teacher accused them of lip-syncing; they answered on \u003cem\u003eThe Arsenio Hall Show\u003c\/em\u003e, and he retracted the claim that April. After \u003cem\u003eFace the Music\u003c\/em\u003e sold poorly, the group broke up in 1994. Jonathan Knight, the oldest New Kid, was the first to leave, in 1994 during the Face the Music tour, and the other four disbanded shortly after. After the split Donnie Wahlberg followed his younger brother Mark into acting, and Joey McIntyre and Jordan Knight both recorded solo albums in 1999. They reunited in 2007 to record a comeback album, confirmed the reunion publicly in April 2008, and went back on tour that year. \u003cem\u003eThe Block\u003c\/em\u003e debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200, and the band released \u003cem\u003eStill Kids\u003c\/em\u003e in May 2024 and opened a Las Vegas residency at Dolby Live at Park MGM on June 20, 2025. New Kids on the Block are often credited with paving the way for the boy bands that followed, such as Take That, the Backstreet Boys and NSYNC.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e🗳️ The Pinback Button's Own Story\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe format goes back to Newark, New Jersey, where Benjamin S. Whitehead and Chester R. Hoag founded Whitehead \u0026amp; Hoag in 1892. On July 21, 1896, the company was granted the last in the series of patents that set the design still used today: a printed picture sealed under a clear cover over a metal shell, with a pin on the back. That same year William McKinley and William Jennings Bryan fought the first presidential race to lean heavily on campaign pins, and Whitehead \u0026amp; Hoag turned out more than 2,000 designs for them. The favorite story from that race: after a solar eclipse, McKinley's pins showed him eclipsing Bryan, and Bryan's side answered with pins promising to do the same to McKinley. It wasn't only politics, either. Right alongside the campaign pins, Whitehead \u0026amp; Hoag landed an order from the American Tobacco Company for millions of buttons to tuck into product packages, and made the first advertising buttons for national brands like Heinz Baked Beans, King Arthur Flour, Wilbur's Cocoa and Gold Medal Flour. The pins and back papers still went in by hand, so the company paid children and families around the Newark factory to do it, and kids would stop by after school to pick up a box of work. Ninety-three years after that 1896 patent, the pinback button was carrying five kids from Boston.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch2\u003e📏 Details\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e💙 Vintage 1980s New Kids on the Block group photo pinback button\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🏷️ Rim marked ©1989 Big Step Productions, Inc. and Button-Up, Troy, Michigan\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e📏 1.5 inches across\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e📌 Cream plastic back with steel bar pin and clasp\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e🟢 NOS, new old stock, never worn\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e💙 About these\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's 1 1\/2 inches across, never worn, with (c)1989 BIG STEP PRODUCTIONS, INC. on the rim - and the 2011 printed there isn't a year, it's Button-Up's street address in Troy, Michigan. Pin it on a jean jacket the way it was made to be worn, or set it in a shadow box with a cassette single and a ticket stub. The supply is finite - nobody's making this 1989 New Kids button again, and once these last unworn ones are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-pin-band-picture-boston-ma-nkotb-tshirt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1989 New Kids on the Block Pinback Button 🎤 Button-Up Troy MI NKOTB Group Photo Pin\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-band-picture-pin-boston-ma-nkotb-pose-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1989 New Kids on the Block Pinback Button 🎤 \"The Pose\" NKOTB Button-Up Troy MI Metal Pin\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990s-new-kids-block-earrings-boston-ma-nkotb-pink-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990s New Kids on the Block Dangle Earrings 🥃 NKOTB Pink Logo Charms on Original Button-Up Display Card, Boy Band Fan Jewelry\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43426643935464,"sku":"VAG-7857756864744","price":8.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4049901031_h9gv.jpg?v=1785356994"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-band-picture-pin-boston-ma-nkotb-pose-treasures","title":"Vintage 1989 New Kids on the Block Pinback Button 🎤 \"The Pose\" NKOTB Button-Up Troy MI Metal Pin","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Taping This Exact Pose Inside Your Locker Door? 🎤 A Vintage 1989 New Kids on the Block Pinback Button, Button-Up, Troy, Michigan\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/RDXRn9Sy9xM\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\u003cp\u003eIf you were anywhere near a junior high in 1989, you know this picture before you finish looking at it: all five of them on black, purple shirt over a white turtleneck, the white 71 jersey and the ballcap down front, and NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK in big red letters. Around the rim it reads BUTTON-UP 2011 AUSTIN TROY, MI 48083 on one side and ©1989 BIG STEP PRODUCTIONS, INC. on the other. The picture is printed on paper under a clear film over a metal shell, with a cream plastic back and a bar pin, and these have never been worn.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e📅 1989, not 2011\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat 2011 on the rim fools people. It's Button-Up's street number - 2011 Austin, in Troy - not a year. The date is the copyright line, ©1989, smack in the middle of Hangin' Tough mania.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🎤 Five kids from Boston\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eProducer Maurice Starr had just been let go by New Edition, and he and his business partner Mary Alford set out to build another group in Boston. Their first find was fifteen-year-old Donnie Wahlberg from Dorchester, who could rap; Jordan and Jonathan Knight, Joey McIntyre and Danny Wood filled out the lineup, and Donnie's little brother Mark lasted only a few months before leaving to build his own career in music and film. The 1986 debut album barely made a ripple. Then Hangin' Tough came out in 1988. Please Don't Go Girl got to No. 10, I'll Be Loving You (Forever) hit No. 1 in June 1989, the title track and Cover Girl went top five, and by the end of 1989 the album was No. 1 on the Billboard 200.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e💰 Big Step and the merchandise machine\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe ©1989 BIG STEP PRODUCTIONS, INC. on this rim is the band's own copyright line - the same Big Step Productions that teamed with DIC to make the New Kids Saturday morning cartoon, which ran on ABC from September to December 1990 with the guys themselves in live-action clips. One of its executive producers was the band's manager, Dick Scott, a Motown man who'd been Berry Gordy's assistant, road manager for the Temptations and the Supremes, and the first African-American manager of the Michigan State Fair. Dolls, lunchboxes, bedsheets, trading cards and buttons followed, and by 1991 the band's merchandise was estimated at $400 million and Forbes had them at the top of its highest-paid entertainers list, ahead of Michael Jackson and Madonna.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e📌 Button-Up of Michigan\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eButton-Up made licensed band buttons all through the 1980s. Their early ones give an address on Ryan Road in Warren, Michigan - a 1984 Huey Lewis and the News button reads 22120 RYAN, WARREN, MI - and by the late 1980s they'd moved up to Troy, just north of Detroit, which is the address on this one. I've never been able to find when Button-Up started or when it closed.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🎤 What came after\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eStep by Step kept it rolling in 1990, Face the Music came out in 1994 to a world that had moved on to grunge, and the five of them stepped away for more than a decade. They reunited in 2008 with The Block, and from May 2011 to June 2012 they toured with the Backstreet Boys as NKOTBSB, two generations of boy-band fans in one arena. The kids who'd pinned these on in 1989 came back as grown-ups to sing along.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e📌 About these\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eEvery one I have is the same unused 1 1\/2 inch button. Pin it to a denim jacket, put it in a shadow box with a ticket stub and a cassette single, or give it to the friend who still knows every word to Step by Step. The supply is finite - nobody's making 1989 Button-Up buttons again, and once these last unused ones are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-pin-band-picture-boston-ma-nkotb-tshirt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1989 New Kids on the Block Pinback Button 🎤 Button-Up Troy MI NKOTB Group Photo Pin\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-pin-jonathan-knight-boston-ma-nkotb-blue-treasures\"\u003eVintage New Kids on the Block Pin 📌 Jonathan Knight, Boston, MA 1980s NKOTB Blue\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-band-picture-pin-boston-ma-nkotb-bat-treasures\"\u003eVintage New Kids on the Block Pinback Button 📌 NKOTB Band Photo Pin, Button-Up Troy MI, 80s Boy Band Memorabilia\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43426690531560,"sku":"VAG-7857764106472","price":10.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4049945723_sbql.jpg?v=1785357003"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-pin-band-picture-boston-ma-nkotb-tshirt-treasures","title":"Vintage 1989 New Kids on the Block Pinback Button 🎤 Button-Up Troy MI NKOTB Group Photo Pin","description":"\u003ch2\u003eWho Made This New Kids on the Block Button? 🎤 Read the Rim. That Company Is in the Law Books.\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/U6UjnQVMSRU\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eTip this button sideways and there are two lines of red type around the rim. One names the little shop that pressed it. The other says ©1989 BIG STEP PRODUCTIONS, INC. - and Big Step, a New York corporation, is one of the plaintiffs in New Kids on the Block v. News America Publishing, the case the Ninth Circuit decided on July 24, 1992, which gave American trademark law its nominative fair use test. Law students still read it. Not bad for a mall-rack pin a kid paid a couple of bucks for.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThese are 1989 New Kids on the Block pinbacks from Button-Up of Troy, Michigan, an inch and a half across, new old stock out of unsold period inventory and never pinned on a jacket. On the front is a full-color photo of all five on a cream background - get close and you can see the halftone dots, real offset printing - with the slanted red NEW KIDS ON THE BLOCK logo across the lower right. Around the rim: BUTTON-UP 2011 AUSTIN TROY, MI 48083 on one side and the Big Step copyright on the other. The back is a cream molded plate with a nickel bar pin and a locking clasp. And that 2011 fools everybody - it isn't a year, it's the street number on Austin. The date on this button is the 1989 copyright.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e⚖️ How Big Step got into the casebooks\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eUSA Today and The Star both ran pay-per-call polls - dial this number and tell us your favorite New Kid - and kept the money. The band's partnership and companies sued for trademark infringement, false advertising and unfair competition, ten counts in all; the caption names all five of them plus Dick Scott Entertainment, Info-Tainment, Winterland Concessions and Big Step Productions, Inc. They lost, and how they lost is the whole point. The court said that when the only sensible way to talk about something is by its name, using the name isn't infringement - you can't poll people about the New Kids on the Block without saying New Kids on the Block. That became the three-part nominative fair use test, one of the most cited ideas in trademark law, all because a couple of papers wanted fifty cents a call from teenagers voting for Jordan.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🏭 Button-Up of Troy\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBefore you could order buttons off your phone, they came out of small regional shops that turned band photos, cartoon characters and birthday gags into tin you could wear. Button-Up ran its presses in Troy, a Detroit suburb in Oakland County, and its rim line shows up on a whole run of licensed 1980s pins - a Bon Jovi portrait, a big Simpsons pin from the show's first year, over-the-hill and humor pins. It was no back-room bootlegger, either. Button-Up turns up in federal court records as a Michigan corporation sitting with Topps, Bantam Books, Penguin USA and Dick Scott Entertainment in suits over New Kids merchandise.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOne of those suits is worth knowing. New York photographer Bette Marshall shot the band at a session around September 20, 1989, licensed for public relations, the tour book and the fan club, for one year, with every photo credited to her. She sued, saying her pictures had turned up uncredited on trading cards, tablecloths, paper plates, wallet cards, posters and buttons, and in December 1991 the court let her claim go forward. Both names on this rim are on the defendants' list - Button-Up, and Big Step, which the court said owned the New Kids on the Block trademark itself. Nothing in the record ties a particular photo to a particular button, but photo rights and button rights were fighting it out in federal court over exactly this kind of thing in exactly these years.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🏙️ Troy, the town with no downtown\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTroy got settled by people coming west from New York - overland through Ohio or by the Erie Canal and the lakes - who named it after the Troy most of them had left. In spring 1821 Johnson Niles bought 160 acres in Oakland County, went back east for his family, brought them to Detroit by schooner, built a log house and started trading; the settlement became Troy Corners, and in 1823 Niles was its first postmaster. By the 1880s the township was known for corn, wheat, melons, wool and dairy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eWhat it never had was a reason for a Main Street. No water power for a mill, and the Detroit \u0026amp; Milwaukee Railroad went right past Troy Corners without a stop. Troy didn't incorporate as a city until 1955, mostly to keep the neighbors from annexing it a field at a time. It took the motto The City of Tomorrow, Today and built just that: 13,217 people at incorporation, 67,102 by 1980, and a light-industrial corridor south of Big Beaver Road laid out for trucks, not trains. That's where Button-Up was - 2011 Austin Drive, ZIP 48083. A manufactured pop sensation's merchandise, pressed in a town that built itself from scratch.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTroy was also a funny little capital of mass-market pop. Kmart's world headquarters, Fort Kresge, sat on Big Beaver Road from 1969 until 2006. The Handleman Company, the rack jobber that stocked music, video and software racks in the big discount stores and was Kmart's only music supplier for decades, was based there too. And Carl Thom started the Harmony House record chain in the late 1940s in Hazel Park, a few miles south, and grew it to 38 stores, most around metro Detroit, every one with a Ticketmaster outlet. That corner of Oakland County helped warehouse, rack and sell pop music, and the concert tickets, to the suburbs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🎶 Five kids from Boston\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt starts with Maurice Starr, who'd made New Edition stars and then lost them to a bigger label. Out to prove the formula, he went back into Boston's neighborhoods in 1984. A talent agent found fourteen-year-old Donnie Wahlberg in Dorchester; Donnie brought in Danny Wood and Jordan Knight, Jordan brought his brother Jonathan, and Joey McIntyre of Jamaica Plain came last and youngest. They were Nynuk for a little while, and the story fans have told for thirty-some years is that the name they kept came out of a song Donnie had already written.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSeveral of them were bused across town under Boston's school desegregation order, and by their own later accounts it was tense outside the school doors. Donnie Wahlberg has talked about being sent as a first-grader from Irish-Catholic Dorchester into mostly Black Roxbury, and he's credited that with opening his ears to the music that shaped his career. Think about that - a white Boston group built to echo New Edition's sound came, in a real way, out of a court-ordered busing map. Most of the kids singing along in 1989 never gave it a thought.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e📈 1989\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe first album barely made a ripple. Then Hangin' Tough came out on August 12, 1988, and by the end of 1989 it was number one on the Billboard 200 and the second-best-selling album of the year, behind Bobby Brown's Don't Be Cruel. It went eight times platinum, and all five singles made the Hot 100 top ten, which no teen act had ever pulled off from one album. Governor Michael Dukakis gave them their own day in Massachusetts, April 24, 1989.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen came the merchandise - dolls, lunch boxes, sheets, clothes, and little cheap things just like this button, an estimated four hundred million dollars' worth of licensed goods in 1991 alone. That year they topped Forbes' list of the highest-paid entertainers in America, ahead of Michael Jackson, Madonna, Prince and Bill Cosby, and in 1990 they'd grossed about $74 million from 152 North American shows. The fall came quick. Lip-syncing accusations surfaced after Milli Vanilli; they broke off an overseas tour to sing live on national TV, and the accusation was withdrawn, but grunge and hip-hop were already taking over. They split from Maurice Starr in late 1993, went out as NKOTB, and were done in 1994 - top of the Forbes list one year, off the bottom of its top twenty two years later. They came back to touring much later. This button is from the peak.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🎤 About these\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePin one on a denim jacket collar where it belongs, put it on a backpack strap with your other '80s pins, give it a little shadow box of its own, or hand it to somebody who was twelve in 1989 and remembers every minute. Two dollars of tin and paper with a landmark trademark case printed on the edge - and if you want to know anything else, just ask me. The supply is finite - once these last unworn 1989 Button-Up pins are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-band-picture-pin-boston-ma-nkotb-pose-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1989 New Kids on the Block Pinback Button 🎤 \"The Pose\" NKOTB Button-Up Troy MI Metal Pin\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-band-picture-pin-boston-ma-nkotb-bat-treasures\"\u003eVintage New Kids on the Block Pinback Button 📌 NKOTB Band Photo Pin, Button-Up Troy MI, 80s Boy Band Memorabilia\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-new-kids-block-pin-jordan-knight-boston-ma-nkotb-jazz-hands\"\u003eVintage New Kids on the Block Pin 🎤 Jordan Knight Jazz Hands Button, NOS 1989 Big Step Productions\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43430415040744,"sku":"VAG-7858661097704","price":9.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4004378536_pyke.jpg?v=1785357019"},{"product_id":"vintage-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-raphael-leonardo-1990-tmnt","title":"Vintage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie Pins 🐢 Raphael Leonardo 1990","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember the 1990 TMNT Movie Pins? 🐢 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie Pin, Raphael and Leonardo, 1990\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/s0e_vH7VwHo\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eThese are the official pins from the original film in 1990, the very first of the Turtles movies. This one is a real color still from the film of two of the brothers side by side, Leonardo in his blue mask and Raphael in his red, with TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES in the green movie logo and THE MOVIE in red below them. Leonardo the leader and Raphael the hothead, right there shoulder to shoulder. On screen, Leonardo was David Forman inside the suit with Brian Tochi's voice, and Raphael was Josh Pais, who both wore the suit and did the voice. Pais even turns up out of costume, as a cab passenger who has a brief run-in with the masked Raphael.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🏷️ What's Printed on It\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ® THE MOVIE\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAround the rim: BUTTON-UP 2011 AUSTIN TROY, MI 48083\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAround the rim: ©1990 NORTHSHORE INVESTMENTS LIMITED\/MIRAGE STUDIOS\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe backs vary: shiny metal, gray or white, each with a wire safety pin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🎬 Turtlemania\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Turtles began in 1984 as a black-and-white indie comic by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird of Mirage Studios, and it was the live-action movie that turned them into a worldwide craze. Steve Barron directed it, New Line Cinema released it on March 30, 1990, and the Turtles themselves were Jim Henson's Creature Shop suits, with Kevin Clash, the puppeteer behind Sesame Street's Elmo, performing and voicing Splinter. It cost about $13.5 million and took in $202 million, the highest-grossing independent film up to that time. The rim copyright goes to Northshore Investments, which held the copyright on the first two Turtles films, alongside Mirage Studios.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFans, a little inside info: when I first listed these they were planning another CGI film for 2023, and sure enough, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem hit theaters that August.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e📌 Button-Up of Troy, Michigan\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe rim names the maker, Button-Up of Troy, Michigan, a pinback maker whose name also turns up on late-1980s Over the Hill birthday buttons.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🏡 Display\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a perfect gift for a 90s kid, a Turtles collector, or anybody who still says \"Cowabunga!\" Pin it on a jacket, a backpack or a cork board, or keep it in a shadow box with an old VHS copy of the movie.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe supply is finite - once these last Raphael and Leonardo movie pins are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-group-shot-1990-tmnt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Group Shot Movie Pin 🐢 — TMNT The Movie Pinback Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-raphael-tmnt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cartoon Pin 🐢 — Raphael Pinback Button, TMNT Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-solo-raphael-1990-tmnt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Raphael Cartoon Pin 📌 TMNT Pinback Button, Red Bandana Twin Sai Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43430742294760,"sku":"VAG-7858918097128","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4052093751_25ez.jpg?v=1785357028"},{"product_id":"vintage-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-group-shot-splinter-1990-tmnt","title":"Vintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie Pin 📌 Group Shot Splinter, TMNT","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember the 1990 TMNT Movie Group Pin? 🐢 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie Group Shot Pin, 1990, by Button-Up of Troy, Michigan\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/NXCBS_beHrk\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eThey're official pins from the 1990 release of the first Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie - the one that started it all. Instead of one hero, this one puts the whole gang on the button at once, a real color photo from the film of the Turtles huddled together in their dark New York City sewer hideout, masks and all, with TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES in the green movie logo and THE MOVIE in red down at the bottom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eOh my - while I was filming, I could've sworn Leonardo was a big-headed baby staring right at me. Now I can't get it out of my head.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🏷️ What's Printed on It\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eTEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES ® THE MOVIE\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAround the rim: BUTTON-UP 2011 AUSTIN TROY, MI 48083\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003eAround the rim: ©1990 NORTHSHORE INVESTMENTS LIMITED\/MIRAGE STUDIOS\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe backs vary: plain metal, gray or white, each with a wire safety pin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🎬 Turtlemania\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Turtles started out in 1984 as a black-and-white indie comic by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird of Mirage Studios, but the live-action movie is what turned them into a worldwide craze. Directed by Steve Barron and released by New Line Cinema on March 30, 1990, it put Jim Henson's Creature Shop suits on the big screen, and Kevin Clash, the puppeteer behind Sesame Street's Elmo, performed and voiced their rat master Splinter. The film cost about $13.5 million to make and took in $202 million, the highest-grossing independent film up to that time. The copyright on the rim goes to Northshore Investments, the company that held the copyright on the first two Turtles films, alongside Mirage Studios.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFans, a little inside info: when I first listed these they were planning another CGI film for 2023, and sure enough, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem hit theaters that August.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📌 Button-Up of Troy, Michigan\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe rim names the maker, Button-Up of Troy, Michigan, a pinback maker whose name also turns up on late-1980s Over the Hill birthday buttons.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🏡 Display\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIt's a perfect gift for a 90s kid, a Turtles collector, or anybody who still says \"Cowabunga!\" Pin it on a jacket, a backpack or a cork board, or put it in a shadow box with an old VHS copy of the movie. The supply is finite - once these last 1990 movie pins are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-donatello-cruising-1990-tmnt\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Donatello Movie Pin 🐢 — TMNT The Movie Pinback Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-dangerous-duo-tmnt\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Dangerous Duo Movie Pin 🐢 — TMNT Button-Up Pinback Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-thumbs-up-tmnt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Thumbs Up Movie Pin 🐢 — TMNT Button-Up Pinback Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43430853705960,"sku":"VAG-7858993627368","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4052214095_1onl.jpg?v=1785357035"},{"product_id":"vintage-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-group-shot-1990-tmnt-treasures","title":"Vintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Group Shot Movie Pin 🐢 — TMNT The Movie Pinback Button","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie? 🐢 Three Turtles Together, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie, 1990\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/zLk3KqtDuIg\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie pin with three of the Turtles together in one shot from the live-action film, red, blue and orange masks, standing in a room with pictures hanging on the wall behind them. TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES® is stacked in green in the middle with THE MOVIE in red underneath.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe back is a shiny steel shell with a pin, and the fine print runs around the rim: BUTTON-UP 2011 AUSTIN TROY, MI 48083, the button maker in Troy, Michigan, and ©1990 NORTHSHORE INVESTMENTS LIMITED\/ MIRAGE STUDIOS.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🎬 The 1990 Movie\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBack in the mid-1980s, Roger Corman pitched Eastman and Laird a live-action movie that would have starred Sam Kinison, Gallagher, Bobcat Goldthwait and Billy Crystal as the Turtles, in green makeup. Thankfully, that is not the one that got made. The real movie was produced by Golden Harvest and shot from July to September 1989 in North Carolina and New York City. Most of the big studios passed on it, and New Line Cinema, a small independent company back then, picked it up halfway through production. Steve Barron directed it from a script by Todd W. Langen and Bobby Herbeck, with Judith Hoag as the reporter April O'Neil and Elias Koteas as the vigilante Casey Jones.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Turtle suits came out of Jim Henson's Creature Shop in London, built in 18 weeks, and Henson said they were the most advanced creatures he had ever worked with. It was one of his last projects before he died, shortly after the premiere. The movie opened on March 30, 1990, made $202 million on a $14 million budget, and was the highest-grossing independent film up to that time. The copyright on the first two films belonged to a UK company, Northshore Investments, and that is the name you will find on the back of this button. Look closely at the movie and you can spot a young Sam Rockwell as one of the Foot Clan thugs, and Kevin Eastman himself in a cameo as a garbage man.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🐢 How Four Turtles Started as a Joke\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKevin Eastman and Peter Laird were two young comic artists sharing a place in Dover, New Hampshire, in 1983. One night that November, Eastman drew a masked turtle standing on its hind legs with nunchucks, just to make Laird laugh, and Laird wrote \"teenage mutant\" over it. The idea poked fun at the big comics of the day: the teenagers of the New Teen Titans, the mutants of the X-Men and the ninjas of Daredevil, with a little Howard the Duck thrown in. They thought about giving the turtles Japanese names and went with Italian Renaissance artists instead, Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo, which Laird said \"felt just quirky enough to fit the concept.\" Even Splinter was a joke on Daredevil's teacher, Stick.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn March 1984 they started Mirage Studios in their home, paid for the first printing with a tax refund and a loan from Eastman's uncle, and ran an ad in the Comics Buyer's Guide. All 3,000 copies sold in a few weeks. In 1987 they licensed the Turtles to Playmates Toys, an animated series came along that same year to sell the figures, and it ran for almost a decade. About $1.1 billion worth of Turtles toys sold between 1988 and 1992, and by 1990 there was a Turtle on just about everything a kid could own, buttons included.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🍕 Cowabunga\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePin it on a jean jacket, a backpack or a hat the way we did in 1990, or frame it in a shadow box with the rest of your Turtles stuff. It's a perfect gift for a whole family of Turtles fans.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-raphael-tmnt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Cartoon Pin 🐢 — Raphael Pinback Button, TMNT Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-raphael-leonardo-1990-tmnt\"\u003eVintage Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Movie Pins 🐢 Raphael Leonardo 1990\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-splinter-gi-1990-tmnt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Splinter Cartoon Pin 🐢 — TMNT Button-Up Pinback Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43430948864232,"sku":"VAG-7859069255912","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4052260891_9e0s.jpg?v=1785357044"},{"product_id":"vintage-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-shredder-1990-tmnt-treasures","title":"Vintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Shredder Movie Pin 🐢 — TMNT The Movie Pinback Button","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember the Shredder in the 1990 TMNT Movie? ⚔️ The Shredder, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie, 1990\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/p6lU0P4oa4M\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie pin with the bad guy himself, the Shredder, in his spiked silver helmet and bladed face guard, staring out of the dark. TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES® is stacked on the left in green, with THE MOVIE in red.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe back is a shiny steel shell with a pin, and the fine print runs around the rim: BUTTON-UP 2011 AUSTIN TROY, MI 48083, the button maker in Troy, Michigan, and ©1990 NORTHSHORE INVESTMENTS LIMITED\/ MIRAGE STUDIOS.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🐢 Shredder\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKevin Eastman got the idea for the Shredder's armor from big trapezoid-shaped cheese graters he pictured on a villain's arms, and it was Peter Laird who came up with the name. The Shredder first showed up in the very first comic in 1984 as the alter ego of Oroku Saki, leader of the Foot Clan. In the 1990 movie James Saito played him and David McCharen did his voice.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🎬 The 1990 Movie\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBack in the mid-1980s, Roger Corman pitched Eastman and Laird a live-action movie that would have starred Sam Kinison, Gallagher, Bobcat Goldthwait and Billy Crystal as the Turtles, in green makeup. Thankfully, that is not the one that got made. The real movie was produced by Golden Harvest and shot from July to September 1989 in North Carolina and New York City. Most of the big studios passed on it, and New Line Cinema, a small independent company back then, picked it up halfway through production. Steve Barron directed it from a script by Todd W. Langen and Bobby Herbeck, with Judith Hoag as the reporter April O'Neil and Elias Koteas as the vigilante Casey Jones.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Turtle suits came out of Jim Henson's Creature Shop in London, built in 18 weeks, and Henson said they were the most advanced creatures he had ever worked with. It was one of his last projects before he died, shortly after the premiere. The movie opened on March 30, 1990, made $202 million on a $14 million budget, and was the highest-grossing independent film up to that time. The copyright on the first two films belonged to a UK company, Northshore Investments, and that is the name you will find on the back of this button. Look closely at the movie and you can spot a young Sam Rockwell as one of the Foot Clan thugs, and Kevin Eastman himself in a cameo as a garbage man.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🐢 How Four Turtles Started as a Joke\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKevin Eastman and Peter Laird were two young comic artists sharing a place in Dover, New Hampshire, in 1983. One night that November, Eastman drew a masked turtle standing on its hind legs with nunchucks, just to make Laird laugh, and Laird wrote \"teenage mutant\" over it. The idea poked fun at the big comics of the day: the teenagers of the New Teen Titans, the mutants of the X-Men and the ninjas of Daredevil, with a little Howard the Duck thrown in. They thought about giving the turtles Japanese names and went with Italian Renaissance artists instead, Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo, which Laird said \"felt just quirky enough to fit the concept.\" Even Splinter was a joke on Daredevil's teacher, Stick.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn March 1984 they started Mirage Studios in their home, paid for the first printing with a tax refund and a loan from Eastman's uncle, and ran an ad in the Comics Buyer's Guide. All 3,000 copies sold in a few weeks. In 1987 they licensed the Turtles to Playmates Toys, an animated series came along that same year to sell the figures, and it ran for almost a decade. About $1.1 billion worth of Turtles toys sold between 1988 and 1992, and by 1990 there was a Turtle on just about everything a kid could own, buttons included.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🍕 Cowabunga\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePin it on a jean jacket, a backpack or a hat the way we did in 1990, or frame it in a shadow box with the rest of your Turtles stuff. It's a perfect gift for anybody who always thought the villain was the coolest one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-sewer-peeking-tmnt\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Sewer Peeking Movie Pin 🐢 — TMNT The Movie Pinback Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-thumbs-up-tmnt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Thumbs Up Movie Pin 🐢 — TMNT Button-Up Pinback Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-splinter-1990-tmnt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990 TMNT Movie Pinback Button 🐀 Splinter Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Button-Up Troy MI\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43435664900328,"sku":"VAG-7860761395432","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4054375227_f7rv.jpg?v=1785357053"},{"product_id":"vintage-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-donatello-cruising-1990-tmnt","title":"Vintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Donatello Movie Pin 🐢 — TMNT The Movie Pinback Button","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Donatello in the 1990 TMNT Movie? 💜 Donatello, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: The Movie, 1990\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/YUhK6m0MfIM\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie pin with Donatello! Donnie, in his purple mask, is leaning out the window of a red truck and reaching out toward you, with TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES® in green and THE MOVIE in red across the bottom.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe back is a shiny steel shell with a pin, and the fine print runs around the rim: BUTTON-UP 2011 AUSTIN TROY, MI 48083, the button maker in Troy, Michigan, and ©1990 NORTHSHORE INVESTMENTS LIMITED\/ MIRAGE STUDIOS.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🐢 Donatello\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn the movie Donatello was the smart one. Leif Tilden wore the suit, Corey Feldman did the voice, and David Rudman worked his face by remote control, while Ernie Reyes Jr. did Donnie's stunts in the suit.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🎬 The 1990 Movie\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eBack in the mid-1980s, Roger Corman pitched Eastman and Laird a live-action movie that would have starred Sam Kinison, Gallagher, Bobcat Goldthwait and Billy Crystal as the Turtles, in green makeup. Thankfully, that is not the one that got made. The real movie was produced by Golden Harvest and shot from July to September 1989 in North Carolina and New York City. Most of the big studios passed on it, and New Line Cinema, a small independent company back then, picked it up halfway through production. Steve Barron directed it from a script by Todd W. Langen and Bobby Herbeck, with Judith Hoag as the reporter April O'Neil and Elias Koteas as the vigilante Casey Jones.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Turtle suits came out of Jim Henson's Creature Shop in London, built in 18 weeks, and Henson said they were the most advanced creatures he had ever worked with. It was one of his last projects before he died, shortly after the premiere. The movie opened on March 30, 1990, made $202 million on a $14 million budget, and was the highest-grossing independent film up to that time. The copyright on the first two films was held by Northshore Investments, and that is the name you will find on the back of this button. Look closely at the movie and you can spot a young Sam Rockwell as one of the Foot Clan thugs, and Kevin Eastman himself in a cameo as a garbage man.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🐢 How Four Turtles Started as a Joke\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eKevin Eastman and Peter Laird were two young comic artists sharing a place in Dover, New Hampshire, in 1983. One night that November, Eastman drew a masked turtle standing on its hind legs with nunchucks, just to make Laird laugh, and Laird wrote \"teenage mutant\" over it. The idea poked fun at the big comics of the day: the teenagers of the New Teen Titans, the mutants of the X-Men and the ninjas of Daredevil, with a little Howard the Duck thrown in. They thought about giving the turtles Japanese names and went with Italian Renaissance artists instead, Leonardo, Donatello, Raphael and Michelangelo, which Laird said \"felt just quirky enough to fit the concept.\" Even Splinter was a joke on Daredevil's teacher, Stick.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eIn March 1984 they started Mirage Studios in their home, paid for the first printing with a tax refund and a loan from Eastman's uncle, and ran an ad in the Comics Buyer's Guide. All 3,000 copies sold in a few weeks. In 1987 they licensed the Turtles to Playmates Toys, an animated series came along that same year to sell the figures, and it ran for almost a decade. About $1.1 billion worth of Turtles toys sold between 1988 and 1992, and by 1990 there was a Turtle on just about everything a kid could own, buttons included.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🍕 Cowabunga\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePin it on a jean jacket, a backpack or a hat the way we did in 1990, or frame it in a shadow box with the rest of your Turtles stuff. The cartoon's theme song summed him up in three words, \"Donatello does machines,\" and he was the brainy brother who built the gadgets and thought his way out of trouble. It's a perfect gift for anybody who always picked the purple one.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-thumbs-up-tmnt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Thumbs Up Movie Pin 🐢 — TMNT Button-Up Pinback Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-michelangelo-tmnt-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Michelangelo Movie Pin 🐢 — TMNT Button-Up Pinback Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1990-teenage-mutant-ninja-turtles-movie-pin-dangerous-duo-tmnt\"\u003eVintage 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Dangerous Duo Movie Pin 🐢 — TMNT Button-Up Pinback Button\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43440622895336,"sku":"VAG-7862049439976","price":7.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4056374977_48w2.jpg?v=1785357063"},{"product_id":"vintage-crater-face-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures","title":"Vintage 1980s Crater Face Gross-Out Monster Pin 📌 Cratered Grimace Pinback Button, Weird Retro Collectible","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Crater Face? 🌕 Crater Face: Pitted Like the Moon and Twice as Ugly\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/-F58xLudT5A\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eVintage Crater Face Pin, Madballs and Garbage Pail Kids Inspired, 1980s! This poor fellow. He has a bald, lumpy head the color of old putty, pitted all over with little craters and pockmarks, droopy pink-rimmed eyes that do not quite match, and a wide snarl full of long, jagged teeth with green slime dripping off them. A purple border runs all the way around the edge, and CRATER FACE is printed in black along the lower left. You laugh first and cringe second, which is exactly how these were supposed to work.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe front is printed paper under a glossy clear cover, and the back is gray with a brass-colored safety pin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🤢 Madballs, Garbage Pail Kids and the Knockoffs\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMadballs were a huge hit in the 1980s, and they came right on the heels of the Garbage Pail Kids. They spawned a bunch of others including Whacky Ghoulies, Ugly Balls, Burp Balls, Weird Balls, and Spit Balls. Parents and teachers hated these things so much!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTopps started it in 1985 with Garbage Pail Kids, a gross-out parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls dreamed up by Art Spiegelman and drawn at first by John Pound. The doll company sued in 1986 and schools all over the country banned the cards, which of course made every kid want them more. Madballs followed from AmToy, a toy company owned by the American Greetings Corporation: foam balls with disgusting faces, first in stores in 1986. The copycats came fast. ERTL made a line of Blurp Balls drawn by the artist James Groman, The Mel Appel Company made Weird Balls, and Lanard Toys made Spit Balls. The Weird Balls line had characters called Sewer Face and Rock Slime, and Crater Face would have fit right in with them.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCrater Face was never one of the official Madballs, though. It belongs to a whole cast of named monster buttons that collectors trade together, with names like Mummeye, Creep Queen, Mad Marvin, Pufang, Cat Bat, Hog Head, Ocufungus, Pigulus and Sad Lad. Nobody put a maker's name on them, and I have never found who made the series. They are definitely neat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🌙 The Man in the Moon\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eCrater Face is pitted like the surface of the moon, and people have been seeing a face up there for as long as anybody has looked up. What I love is how many different stories there are about who he is. An old European tradition says the Man in the Moon was banished up there for some crime. One version makes him the man in the Book of Numbers who was caught gathering sticks on the Sabbath. Some Germanic peoples said he was a woodcutter caught working on the Sabbath, a Roman legend made him a sheep thief, and a medieval Christian tradition said he was Cain, doomed to wander around the earth forever. Dante mentions that one in the Inferno.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe Haida people of the Pacific Northwest tell it as a boy who was sent out to gather sticks. His father told him the moon would light his way, the boy grumbled and made fun of the moon, and for his rudeness he was taken up and trapped there. In Norse myth the moon was Máni, who drives a horse-drawn carriage across the sky with the great wolf Hati chasing him. In China the goddess Chang'e drank a double dose of an immortality potion and ended up stranded on the moon, with a moon rabbit for company in some tellings, while a man named Wu Gang keeps chopping at a tree up there that always grows back. Japanese parents often tell their kids the markings are a rabbit making rice cakes.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe playwright John Lyly summed it all up back in 1591: \"There liveth none under the sunne, that knows what to make of the man in the moone.\" My own theory is that the fellow on this pin is what the Man in the Moon looks like after a few billion years of getting hit by rocks.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📌 Wear It or Frame It\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePin it on a denim jacket, a backpack or a Halloween costume, or put it in a shadow box with your other gross-out buttons. It's a perfect little gift for the stargazer with a sick sense of humor, or anybody who grew up with Madballs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-mad-marvin-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Mad Marvin Gross-Out Monster Pin 🥃 Bulging Eyeball Pinback Button, Weird Retro Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-cat-bat-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Cat Bat Gross-Out Monster Pin 📌 Green Fanged Vampire Face Pinback Button, Weird Retro Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-evileen-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Evileen Gross-Out Monster Pin 📌 Fanged Green Cat Face Pinback Button, Weird Retro Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43440802070760,"sku":"VAG-7862080504040","price":6.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4008888106_5wi0.jpg?v=1785357071"},{"product_id":"vintage-mad-marvin-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures","title":"Vintage 1980s Mad Marvin Gross-Out Monster Pin 🥃 Bulging Eyeball Pinback Button, Weird Retro Collectible","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Mad Marvin? 🧠 Mad Marvin: Brains, Guts and One Loose Eyeball\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/BxHplkTdt-c\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eVintage Mad Marvin Pin, Madballs and Garbage Pail Kids Inspired, 1980s! Mad Marvin is my pick for the grossest one in the whole series. His face looks like it is built out of a pile of pink worms, or maybe guts, with a lumpy brain showing on top. One eyeball has popped right out on the left, the other eye is half shut like he does not care, and a long red tongue curls out of the whole mess. MAD MARVIN is printed in black across the top. Kids loved this stuff and I still do.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe front is printed paper under a glossy clear cover, and the back is gray with a brass-colored safety pin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🤢 Madballs, Garbage Pail Kids and the Knockoffs\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMadballs were a huge hit in the 1980s, and they came right on the heels of the Garbage Pail Kids. They spawned a bunch of others including Whacky Ghoulies, Ugly Balls, Burp Balls, Weird Balls, and Spit Balls. Parents and teachers hated these things so much!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTopps started it in 1985 with Garbage Pail Kids, a gross-out parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls dreamed up by Art Spiegelman and drawn at first by John Pound. The doll company sued in 1986 and schools all over the country banned the cards, which of course made every kid want them more. Madballs followed from AmToy, a toy company owned by the American Greetings Corporation: foam balls with disgusting faces, first in stores in 1986. The copycats came fast. ERTL made a line of Blurp Balls drawn by the artist James Groman, The Mel Appel Company made Weird Balls, and Lanard Toys made Spit Balls. The official Madballs had Aargh, a Frankenstein-looking monster covered in stitches with one eye missing, and Bash Brain, a zombie head with its brain showing, and Mad Marvin looks like the two of them had a very bad day together.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMad Marvin was never one of the official Madballs, though. It belongs to a whole cast of named monster buttons that collectors trade together, with names like Mummeye, Craterface, Creep Queen, Pufang, Cat Bat, Hog Head, Ocufungus, Pigulus and Sad Lad. Nobody put a maker's name on them, and I have never found who made the series. They are definitely neat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e⚡ Frankenstein and the Year Without a Summer\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA mad fellow pieced together out of spare parts puts me right in mind of Frankenstein. In 1815 the volcano Mount Tambora erupted, and the next year, 1816, went down as the Year Without a Summer. Mary Shelley was 18 and not yet married when she and the poet Percy Bysshe Shelley visited Lord Byron at the Villa Diodati on Lake Geneva in Switzerland. It was too cold and rainy to do anything outdoors, so they sat around the log fire reading German ghost stories, and Byron proposed that they \"each write a ghost story.\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMary thought for days and came up empty. Every morning somebody asked if she had thought of a story yet, and every morning she had to say no. Then one night the talk turned to galvanism and whether a corpse might be brought back to life. She went to bed after midnight, could not sleep, and saw what she called her \"waking dream\": a pale student kneeling beside the thing he had put together. That became Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus, published without her name in London on January 1, 1818, when she was 20. In the book Victor Frankenstein builds his creature one piece at a time from \"the dissecting room and the slaughter-house.\" Byron's doctor, John Polidori, wrote The Vampyre out of that same contest, so one miserable summer gave us two of the great horror stories.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA little more lore for you. On a trip along the Rhine in Germany in 1815, Mary stopped in Gernsheim, about 11 miles from Frankenstein Castle, where a century earlier the alchemist Johann Konrad Dippel had carried out his experiments. She never mentions him, and nobody knows if she heard the stories. And the monster brought to life by a huge jolt of electricity? That came mostly from James Whale's 1931 movie with Boris Karloff. In the book the process is left a mystery.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📌 Wear It or Frame It\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePin it on a denim jacket, a backpack or a Halloween costume, or put it in a shadow box with your other gross-out buttons. It's a perfect little gift for the horror fan, the biology teacher with a sick sense of humor, or anybody who grew up with Madballs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-crater-face-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Crater Face Gross-Out Monster Pin 📌 Cratered Grimace Pinback Button, Weird Retro Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-evileen-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Evileen Gross-Out Monster Pin 📌 Fanged Green Cat Face Pinback Button, Weird Retro Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-cat-bat-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Cat Bat Gross-Out Monster Pin 📌 Green Fanged Vampire Face Pinback Button, Weird Retro Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43441260101864,"sku":"VAG-7862149054696","price":7.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4056850585_p9di.jpg?v=1785357080"},{"product_id":"vintage-pufang-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures","title":"Vintage 1980s Pufang Pin 📌 Madballs and Garbage Pail Kids Inspired","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Pufang? 😵 Pufang: A Baby Face Only a Mother Could Love\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/kFgoY_wkzHs\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eA 1980s Pufang pin, straight out of the Madballs and Garbage Pail Kids craze! Meet Pufang. He's a pale, bald, lumpy little baby head with one eye squeezed shut and the other one bulging wide open, rimmed in pink and staring right through you. His mouth is full of crooked baby teeth with a pair of little fangs, and green slime is drooling down over his chin. PUFANG runs up the right edge in small black letters. It's gross, and I think he's adorable.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe picture is printed paper under a glossy clear front, and the back is gray metal with a brass-colored safety pin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🤢 Gross Was In\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMadballs were huge in the '80s, coming hot on the heels of the Garbage Pail Kids. Then came the copycats - Whacky Ghoulies, Ugly Balls, Burp Balls, Weird Balls, Spit Balls. Moms, dads and teachers could not stand these!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePufang is one of a whole cast of named monster buttons collectors trade as a group, alongside Mummeye, Craterface, Creep Queen, Mad Marvin, Cat Bat, Hog Head, Ocufungus and Pigulus. None of them were official AmToy Madballs, and nobody put a maker's name on the buttons, so I still can't tell you who made the series. They are definitely neat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e👶 The Babies Who Started It All\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eA slimy baby face like Pufang's is a joke on one thing: the Cabbage Patch Kids. As the story goes, a 21-year-old art student in the North Georgia mountains named Xavier Roberts came across the craft artist Martha Nelson's Doll Babies, which came with a birth certificate and adoption papers. Roberts hand-stitched his own dolls, called them the Little People, and told customers they were not for sale. They could only be adopted, for anywhere from $60 to $1,000, at Babyland General Hospital, an old medical clinic in Cleveland, Georgia that he and his friends turned into a toy store.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eFisher-Price already owned the name Little People, so they became the Cabbage Patch Kids, and the licensing agent Roger Schlaifer wrote them a legend: little flying BunnyBees pollinate a secret cabbage patch behind a waterfall with magic crystals, and the babies are born right out of the cabbages. Coleco started making them in 1982 and shipped 3.3 million dolls in 1983. By that October parents were fighting in the aisles to get one, in what the papers called the Cabbage Patch riots, and in December a Cabbage Patch Kid made the cover of Newsweek.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThen in 1985 Topps put out the Garbage Pail Kids, sticker cards of babies that were drooling, oozing, exploding and worse, drawn in a way nobody could mistake. Roberts's company, Original Appalachian Artworks, sued Topps for $30 million. By then Topps had sold more than $70 million worth of the cards, and it settled for $7 million and kept right on printing them. Babyland General is still going, too, in a newer building on the edge of Cleveland, Georgia since 2010.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📌 Show Him Off\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePin him on a denim jacket, a backpack or a baby bag if you have a sense of humor, or line him up in a shadow box with the rest of the monster crew. He makes a great little gift for anybody who had a Cabbage Patch Kid and a stack of Garbage Pail Kids in the same bedroom. The supply is finite - once these last 1980s Pufang pins are gone, they'll be very difficult to acquire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-creep-queen-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Creep Queen Pin 📌 Madballs and Garbage Pail Kids Inspired\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-mummeye-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Mummeye Pin 📌 Madballs and Garbage Pail Kids Inspired\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-1980s-sad-lad-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Sad Lad Gross-Out Pin 📌 Droopy Bloodshot Monster Face, Pin-Back Button in the Spirit of the 80s Gross-Out Craze\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43441328652520,"sku":"VAG-7862177693928","price":11.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4056883325_buyx.jpg?v=1785357088"},{"product_id":"vintage-1980s-sad-lad-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-treasures","title":"Vintage 1980s Sad Lad Gross-Out Pin 📌 Droopy Bloodshot Monster Face, Pin-Back Button in the Spirit of the 80s Gross-Out Craze","description":"\u003ch2\u003eRemember Sad Lad? 😢 Sad Lad: The Gloomiest Face in the Bunch\u003c\/h2\u003e\n\u003cp\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eSize:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1 1\/2\"\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv style=\"max-width:315px;margin:0 auto 20px;\"\u003e\u003cdiv style=\"position:relative;padding-bottom:177.78%;height:0;overflow:hidden;\"\u003e\u003ciframe src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/atyNVUlgXCg\" style=\"position:absolute;top:0;left:0;width:100%;height:100%;\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer;autoplay;clipboard-write;encrypted-media;gyroscope;picture-in-picture\" allowfullscreen\u003e\u003c\/iframe\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\u003c\/div\u003e\n\n\n\n\u003cp\u003eVintage Sad Lad Pin, Madballs and Garbage Pail Kids Inspired, 1980s! Poor Sad Lad. His pale gray face is scrunched into the saddest scowl you ever saw: a heavy furrowed brow, two huge dark eyes sitting in bloodshot, red-veined whites, and a long droopy nose hanging down over everything. SAD LAD is printed in black along the top edge. He looks like he just found out summer vacation is over.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThe front is printed paper under a glossy clear cover, and the back is gray with a brass-colored safety pin.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🤢 Madballs, Garbage Pail Kids and the Knockoffs\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eMadballs were a huge hit in the 1980s, and they came right on the heels of the Garbage Pail Kids. They spawned a bunch of others including Whacky Ghoulies, Ugly Balls, Burp Balls, Weird Balls, and Spit Balls. Parents and teachers hated these things so much!\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eTopps started it in 1985 with Garbage Pail Kids, a gross-out parody of the Cabbage Patch Kids dolls dreamed up by Art Spiegelman and drawn at first by John Pound. The doll company sued in 1986 and schools all over the country banned the cards, which of course made every kid want them more. Madballs followed from AmToy, a toy company owned by the American Greetings Corporation: foam balls with disgusting faces, first in stores in 1986. The copycats came fast. ERTL made a line of Blurp Balls drawn by the artist James Groman, The Mel Appel Company made Weird Balls, and Lanard Toys made Spit Balls. Lanard's Spit Balls even had one called Crybaby, so Sad Lad had at least one cousin who understood him.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSad Lad was never one of the official Madballs, though. It belongs to a whole cast of named monster buttons that collectors trade together, with names like Mummeye, Craterface, Creep Queen, Mad Marvin, Pufang, Cat Bat, Hog Head, Ocufungus and Pigulus. Nobody put a maker's name on them, and I have never found who made the series. They are definitely neat.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e🖼️ The Curse of the Crying Boy\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSad Lad always makes me think of the Crying Boy, the saddest face that ever hung over a sofa. It was a mass-produced print of a painting by the Italian artist Bruno Amarillo, who worked under the name Giovanni Bragolin, and from the 1950s on it was everywhere, along with a whole run of other tearful boys and girls. Then on September 5, 1985, the same year Topps put out the Garbage Pail Kids, the British tabloid The Sun reported that a firefighter in Essex, England, said copies of the painting kept turning up undamaged in the ruins of burned houses.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eThat was all it took. The legend spread that the Crying Boy was cursed and would burn down any house that hung him, and by the end of November The Sun was holding mass bonfires of the prints, sent in by readers who wanted them gone. Later stories named the boy Don Bonillo or Diablo and tied him to a string of fires, even one at the painter's studio, but the journalist David Clarke says those tales did not appear until a book came out in 2000. In 2010 the comedian Steve Punt took on the curse for his BBC Radio 4 show Punt PI and had the prints tested at the Building Research Establishment. The answer was a varnish with fire retardant in it, and the string holding the picture burned through first, so the print dropped face down on the floor and came through the fire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cp\u003eSo Sad Lad is part of a long tradition of sad faces nobody can quite get rid of. I promise he has never set anything on fire.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\n\u003ch3\u003e📌 Wear It or Frame It\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cp\u003ePin it on a denim jacket, a backpack or a Halloween costume, or put it in a shadow box with your other gross-out buttons. It's a perfect little gift for the friend who is always a little gloomy, or anybody who grew up with Madballs.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cdiv class=\"relatedBlock\"\u003e\n\u003ch3\u003e🔎 More From The Vintage \u0026amp; Antique Gifts Archive\u003c\/h3\u003e\n\u003cul\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-bot-eye-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Bot Eye Gross-Out Pin 🥃 Bulging Bloodshot Bug-Eyes and Manic Grin, Pin-Back Button in the 80s Gross-Out Spirit\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-biface-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Biface Gross-Out Pin 📌 Half Monster Half Boy Two-Faced Character, Pin-Back Button in the 80s Gross-Out Spirit\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003cli\u003e\u003ca href=\"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/products\/vintage-cat-bat-pin-madballs-garbage-pail-kids-inspired-1980s-treasures\"\u003eVintage 1980s Cat Bat Gross-Out Monster Pin 📌 Green Fanged Vampire Face Pinback Button, Weird Retro Collectible\u003c\/a\u003e\u003c\/li\u003e\n\u003c\/ul\u003e\n\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":43441614061800,"sku":"VAG-7862303457512","price":7.0,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0597\/2718\/4037\/files\/il_fullxfull.4009340506_njes.jpg?v=1785357097"}],"url":"https:\/\/vintageantiquesgifts.com\/collections\/pins-badges-and-patches.oembed?page=7","provider":"Vintage and Antique Gifts","version":"1.0","type":"link"}