Where To Buy
There is an official online London 2012 Shop selling pins amongst many other branded items. See the links page.
There are official retail shops at St. Pancras International Station, Paddington Station,Heathrow Airport, Standstead Airpor,Canary Wharf John Lewis Oxford Street and John Lewis Westfield Stratford City. You can see photos of the opening of the first store at St. Pancras here.
A number of smaller, independent retailers stock a wide range of pins and two worthy of note are Glamorous Living and Pins & Things. Both offer a comprehensive selection, international delivery and excellent customer service. Look at the links page for both their websites.
The Museum of London stock a wide range of pins and alongside the official online store have the most comprehensive range available. As well as the shop located in the museum, they offer an online and telephone ordering service and will post overseas. Look at the links page for the Museum of London's website.
There are a couple of chains that sell the pins in their shops and website. Crest Of London are a souvenir shop chain that sell some of the Games Logo pins in their shops and online. Runners Need are a chain of athletics shops who also have some of the standard logo pins in their shops and on their website.
There are vast selection of pins available online from Olympic Pin websites. There are a few online pin sellers who offer London 2012 pins. These tend to be sellers based outside the UK who specialise in US pins or Olympics pins from around the world and offer the London 2012 pins if they have them. These traders could not be considered a comprehensive source of London 2012 pins.
As is often the case with collectables, eBay is a major source of a wide range of London 2012 pins. There is a good mix of UK and international sellers offering most of the common pins. Every now and then the rarer ones pop up and, as these are often available as auctions, the market sets the price.
Please be careful when buying from eBay. Personal experience has made us cautious when buying pins from China. Pins which appear to be genuine LOCOG or sponsor pins turn out to be fake and of poorer quality than the real thing. We're not saying all pins from China on eBay are fake, but please be careful and ask questions - we have been caught out more than once.
We cannot recommend any particular source but have used most of the retailers mentioned above and made many successful purchases online via eBay.
Please check what you're buying, ask questions and if a pin looks too good to be true - it probably is.
We are unable to offer advice on buying or pricing a pin and cannot verify the authenticity of a particular pin.
Updated: September 2011