Vancouver's 2010 Winter Olympics forever changed some business-related aspects of the Olympic movement.
One of Canada's most ardent Olympic pin collectors told Business in Vancouver that the popularity of pin collecting at Vancouver's Games has fuelled an entrepreneurialism that breaches the fundamental etiquette of the hobby.
"You have people in B.C. caught up in the fervour of the Games and now they are trying to make a business out of it," said Andrew Kollo, who lives in Keswick, Ontario, and operates Pincollectorssite.com.
"They're contacting all the [London 2012] corporate sponsors in England and once they get the pins, they put them up on eBay."
Proper etiquette, he said, would be to trade pins rather than sell them.
The result has been that sponsors are unhappy that others are profiting off their pins and are now less willing to mail pins to people in Canada.
The situation got so bad that Honav UK, which is the exclusive licensee of the lapel pins for the London 2012 Olympics, sent Kollo an abrupt email when they wrongly thought he was involved in selling the pins, Kollo said.
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