Profile: Lapel Pins – 1990 World Figure Skating Championships, Halifax, Canada

Get ready to embark on a journey back to the 1990s! Hosted in the Canadian Maritimes city of Halifax, the 1990 World Figure Skating Championships made history in two memorable ways: for ushering in the beginning of one era while sending another one packing. It was the first-ever World Championships held in the new decade of the 1990s and the last ever to include compulsory figures. Mirroring the new era that was sweeping in, the colorful and unusual lapel pins issued to mark the occasion of the 1990 World Figure Skating Championships live on with a freshness some 33 years later. But what of our good old friends the compulsory figures? Well, they live on only in memory.

To this point, at least to the knowledge of The Curator of The Netropolitan Museum of Figure Skating Pins, the parallelogram shape seen in the main logo pin had never been used for a world event. The dynamic logo, a maple leaf with bursts of trailing blues and greens that finish with “ice crystal” edges, creates both motion and visual appeal. Stacked below the logo are the event year, name, and location: “1990 World Figure Skating Championships Canada Halifax–Dartmouth.” The parallelogram shape is repeated on the right as a sort of drop shadow, slightly inset and filled with light blue. The highly reflective silver-color base metal contrasts well with and complements the red and blue palette. Note, however, that the pin tarnishes and is easily susceptible to scratching. Shown first in the gallery below, the main logo pin measures approximately 7/8″ x 1‑3/8″ (2.2 cm x 3.5 cm).

The parallelogram shape seen in the main logo pin had never been used for a world event before the 1990 World Figure Skating Championships.

The maple leaf logo was given a chance to shine as a second logo pin, done in cut-out style, that carries only the event year: “1990.” The color palette of this pin is brighter than the main pin and likely is a difference that occurred during production since the styles of the pins are different. Additionally, the font used for “1990” differs from the main pin. The “miss” with this otherwise nicely done pin is that only those familiar with the history of figure skating or those who conducted research would be able today, all these decades later, to connect the pin to a world figure skating event. On a silver-color base metal, the pin measures approximately 1‑1/4″ x 5/8″ (3.1 cm x 1.6 cm).

At least two special-issue pins also marked the occasion of the 1990 World Figure Skating Championships. Volunteers at the event wore a small pin in a replica shape of the then-current logo of the Canadian Figure Skating Association (CFSA, or today called Skate Canada). Just below the logo are the year, event name, and role: “1990 World’s Volunteer.” And has been seen on other World Championships pins issued in Canada, the odd use of World’s as a possessive makes yet another appearance. This was the case for the 1978 Worlds and the 1984 Worlds, both held in Ottawa. Again, The Netropolitan wonders aloud: “World’s what?” What belongs to the word World’s? It’s nonsensical. On a gold-color base metal, the volunteer pin measures approximately 3/4″ x 13/16″ (1.9 cm x 2.0 cm). But it appears that not all volunteers were treated equally, at least when it came to the lapel pin at 1990 Worlds. The Curator has also seen a different version of a volunteer pin that is the same general design as the competitor pin described below. Perhaps the additional version will be featured at The Netropolitan in the future.

Next in the gallery is a pin made for and given only to competitors in the event. Using the same general design as the main logo pin, the parallelogram is slightly more narrow and the color palette has been modified from red and blues to a simpler red and white. White, of course, symbolizes the “good guys”—appropriate for the competitors of the sport’s most important event. The competitor pin contains less information, with the city and country designations dropped in favor of only the year, role, and event name: “1990 Competitor World Figure Skating Championships.” The result is a cleaner-look pin and one that is distinctive when compared against the logo pin, an important difference. On the same reflective silver-color base metal as the main logo pin, the competitor pin measures approximately 13/16″ x 1‑3/8″ (2.1 cm x 3.5 cm).

The Journey Into the History of Figure Skating Pins

Just as the 1990 World Championships brought to close an era, so does this blog for The Netropolitan Museum of Figure Skating Pins. It is the last new one that is planned to be published at this time. Since the focus of the museum is pins from major events up to 1990, all those in the collection of The Curator have now been featured in a blog at least once over the past nearly two and a half years.

But do not fear: to help promote the enjoyable and lasting hobby of pin collecting—and to try to revive it within the sport of figure skating—The Curator will continue by publishing updated versions of previous blogs. The Netropolitan launched in May 2020, so there’s a lot of figure skating history seen in pins that deserves a second look.

And so the journey begins. Again … next week.

In the meantime, enjoy this week’s figure skating pins blog: 1990 World Figure Skating Championships Pins: First and Last. And be sure to read the museum story for more information about figure skating pins.

Pins Gallery: 1990 World Figure Skating Championships

#figureskatingpins #pincollecting #pintrading #pincollector #netropolitanmuseum