Vintage 1990s New Kids on the Block Logo Pin Pinback 📌 Boston, MA NKOTB

Remember New Kids on the Block Logo Pins? 📌 New Kids on the Block Logo Pin on Its Button-Up Card

Size: 2" x 1" ~ Unused old store stock, still on its card.

At 2" x 1", these pins are a special souvenir and will bring back lots of memories. This is a vintage New Kids on the Block logo pin, the glossy green-and-yellow NEWKIDS / ON THE / BLOCK logo on three lines, still fastened to the black card it came on, with a gold foil Button-Up logo across the top and the gold-tone butterfly clutch still clipped on the back.

🏷️ Where It Came From

Button-Up was the maker. The Button-Up Company of Troy, Michigan had a license from Big Step Productions, the band's official merchandise licensor, to make New Kids on the Block buttons in 1989, and other Button-Up New Kids pieces print the maker's name right on the card. That puts it right at 1989 to 1990, the front edge of the craze. It's never been worn, and the pin itself is bright and unchipped; the card took the wear, like cards always do.

🎤 Five Kids from Boston

New Kids on the Block were born in Boston's Dorchester neighborhood in 1984, when producer Maurice Starr, the man who'd already guided New Edition, put a group together: brothers Jonathan and Jordan Knight, Joey McIntyre, Donnie Wahlberg and Danny Wood. (Donnie's little brother Mark was in the early lineup too, before he went his own way.)

It took a while. Their second album, Hangin' Tough, finally caught fire in 1988 after a Florida radio station started playing "Please Don't Go Girl," and it went on to spend 132 weeks on the charts and sell eight times platinum. By 1991 sales of New Kids merchandise were estimated at $400 million, pins, buttons, lunchboxes and all, and that year they topped Forbes' list of the highest-paid entertainers, ahead of Michael Jackson and Madonna. You won't believe it, but their official hotline, 1-900-909-5KIDS, got about 100,000 calls a week at $2 for the first minute and 45 cents for every minute after, with part of the money going to United Cerebral Palsy, and the fan club had more than 200,000 members. Even Jennifer Lopez got an early break with them: she was hired as a backup dancer for their performance of "Games" at the 1991 American Music Awards. A little logo pin like this was the easiest way in for a kid with pocket money. The group split up in 1994 and came back together in April 2008, and their comeback album, The Block, debuted at number 2. They're still at it: on March 3, 2022 they put out "Bring Back the Time," with Salt-N-Pepa, Rick Astley and En Vogue along for the ride.

🏡 Display

It frames tiny and beautifully right on its card, or it goes straight on a denim jacket where it belongs. A perfect gift for any Blockhead, anybody from Boston, or anybody who grew up with the New Kids.