Figure Skating Pins Profile: 1956 European Championships Concluding just five days before the 1956 Olympic Winter Games opened in Cortina d'Ampezzo, Italy, the 1956 European Figure Skating Championships in Paris crowned Europe's best skaters during essentially a stopover on their way to Northern Italy. Then, just ten days after the Games concluded, the world's best… Continue reading Paris to Cortina to Garmisch. 1956.
Category: 1950s
Of Simpler Times. 1959.
This ribbon from the 1959 U.S. Figure Skating Championships is from the estate of Bill Hickox, who, with his pair skating partner and sister, Laurie, and the entire U.S. figure skating team—and 71 others—perished on February 15, 1961, when Sabena Airlines Flight #548 crashed in Brussels, Belgium, en route to the 1961 World Figure Skating Championships scheduled for Prague, Czechoslovakia.
Way Down in the Valley. 1956.
1956 World Championships at The Netropolitan Museum of Figure Skating Pins In a valley in the Bavarian Alps and not far from the Zugspitze, Germany's highest mountain peak, lies the resort of Garmisch-Partenkirchen. It's a city (two towns, actually, that came together in 1935) with a history steeped in winter sports and with an Olympic… Continue reading Way Down in the Valley. 1956.
Behind the Iron Curtain. 1955.
Creativity and extra dimension define the pins and medal that commemorate the 1955 European Figure Skating Championships, which took place at City Park Ice Rink, a massive outdoor facility in central Budapest, Hungary. It was the third time the city had hosted the annual test to determine Europe's best figure skaters but only the second time in post-World War II Europe that the event had been held behind the so-called "Iron Curtain." Those gathered for the event were treated with a figure skating pin unlike most others.
At Least the Shape is Nice. 1955.
Triangle shapes are not often used for figure skating pins, making the one that commemorates the 1955 World Figure Skating Championships somewhat unique for this reason. But the pin stands out for another, less stellar, reason: the lightweight alloy from which it is made. The pin is decidedly not the calibre of those seen for previous World Championships, nor is it a particularly good representative of the fine city of Vienna, where the event took place at the famed Wiener Eislauf-Verein (Viennese Skating Club). Pins from earlier and later figure skating events held in Vienna are exceptionally well done (see blog links below).