About The Netropolitan Museum of Figure Skating Pins

The Museum Story

Welcome to The Netropolitan Museum of Figure Skating Pins. Through this blog, The Curator aims to preserve the history of the sport of figure skating as seen in the many beautiful and unusual lapel pins and medals issued to commemorate major championships. More importantly, this blog serves as an online resource and repository of that history.

The Netropolitan Museum of Figure Skating Pins debuted in 1996 as a dedicated website but was reinvented in 2020 as a weekly blog. It is produced by a collector for collectors. Over more than 40 years, The Curator of The Netropolitan accumulated a massive collection of figure skating pins to now share with those who already enjoy collecting or to inspire others to become collectors.

Collecting is like eating peanuts—you have one and can’t stop. — Malcolm Forbes

Figure Skating Pins On Display

The Netropolitan showcases a wide selection of colorful and interesting figure skating pins from around the world, including pins produced for and given only to ISU delegates, competitors, coaches, officials, judges, referees, press, and others. Specifically, only those pins from 1990 and earlier will be featured here. That year was chosen as a cutoff because it was the last that compulsory figures were contested. For more than a century prior, figures served as the core of the sport, and when they were eliminated after 1990, the sport was irrevocably damaged and forever changed. In the opinion of The Curator, 1990 serves as a marker of what the sport once was. Pins (or participant medals) from these events are on display:

  • World Figure Skating Championships
  • European Figure Skating Championships
  • World Junior Figure Skating Championships
  • North American Figure Skating Championships
  • United States Figure Skating Championships
  • Canadian Figure Skating Championships
  • Skate Canada
  • Skate America

Note that The Netropolitan won’t feature club pins, federation pins, team pins, figural pins, media or sponsor pins (other than those issued by the event itself), ice show pins, precision/synchronized pins, generic skating pins, and pins from events not listed above. These categories are not the focus of the collection, although an occasional exception may be made.

Journey Into Figure Skating’s Past

Join The Curator for an in-depth look at figure skating pins and explore everything from common design themes to production quality to cultural influences to the changing times in the sport of figure skating itself. And thrown in will be some folklore and stories from the “golden age” of collecting. Equally important are the opinions and observations expressed here, both of which are plentiful and sometimes colorful! Let your journey down this path begin.

To learn more about the sport’s history, visit the Skating Magazine Archive. Skating is the official publication of U.S. Figure Skating.