"They're teachers from the San Fernando Valley who go to all the Olympics and lug a bunch of weights - suitcases containing tens of thousands of commemorative pins. Presburger, who retired last Friday after 35 years of teaching at El Camino Real High, brought about 15,000 pins to Italy for the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics, requiring three hefty suitcases. He'll spend the next three weeks trading them with anyone and everyone he meets on the street. He's constantly scanning the horizon for the next swap."
""We're like magnets," said Frank, a retired middle-school teacher from Burbank, his Dodgers jersey weighed down by about 100 pins, a fraction of the few thousand he brought. Presburger is easy to spot in a crowd. He's tall and wears a pink bib covered in colorful pins. It's as heavy as a weight vest, with a zippered pocket in back for the mementos he just traded for and really wants to keep."
Dan Presburger and Brad Frank travel to Olympics carrying massive collections of commemorative pins for trading. Presburger retired after 35 years teaching and brought about 15,000 pins to the Milan-Cortina Winter Olympics in three hefty suitcases. Frank wears a Dodgers jersey weighted by about 100 pins and carries a few thousand pins. Presburger wears a pink bib covered in pins with a zippered pocket for newly traded mementos and gives pins to children and strangers. Trades occur in restaurants, taxis, and bathrooms. Presburger's most valuable pin is a 1908 judge's badge valued around $3,500. About 125,000 pins are stored at his home.
Read at Los Angeles Times
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