This project, ten years in the making, started quite innocently. Working with the 180 British Columbia municipalities and regional districts (collectively called local governments), I very frequently saw each letterhead with the crest or logo of that community, especially as I was responsible for opening all the mail. In addition, the financial analysts in the office made regional trips to the areas for which they had responsibility and would come back with pins, some of which they gave to me.
It was in 1996 that I was explaining this to my hairdresser and he suggested that I not restrict myself to British Columbia, but do the whole country! So, I wrote to each municipality in the province and started receiving small padded envelopes by the dozen. If I did not hear back from in a couple of weeks, I followed up with another letter.
As I neared the end of British Columbia, I wrote to the Alberta Ministry of Municipal Affairs to get their municipal directory and started my letter-writing to them. I much preferred to write letters than send an e-mail (I did not have that ability when I started the project) since I received letters and notes on the municipality's letterhead. Of course, as I started going east, the amount of time it took to receive a reply grew but I did have to follow up half a dozen times with some because I had know way of knowing if they had a pin unless there was some type of reply.
In addition to pins, sometimes pens, post-it notes, maps, brochures and other items would be sent. I was by no way the only person who requested such items as quite a few letters indicated that they received frequent requests for pins.
Municipalities can be classified as cities, districts, towns, villages, municipal districts and other jurisdictions depending upon the province. It was natural for me to display them on corkboards alphabetically in the jurisdiction with a space between each. I ended up with several large corkboards which were displayed throughout the house and were always talking points when entertaining visitors.
British Columbia and Alberta municipal pins with local government association and provincial pins between. Municipalities change their logo over time and create pins for special occasions. Also as the population expands, they can change from one jurisdiction (town) to another (city) for example. I have several occurrences where there is more than one pin from a municipality due to these circumstances.
Saskatchewan, while having over 800 municipalities, had only just over 400 pins.
The Province of Manitoba's pins.
I tackled Ontario's 444 municipalities in 2000 and quite a number produced special pins for the millennium.
Whereas British Columbia has less than 200 incorporated local governments, Quebec had over 1,000! It took me three years to finish this province and a colleague of mine at work who was French helped me translate my template letter into French so I was able to include both languages. I had taken French in school and was able to read enough of their French reply in order to understand what it said.
New Brunswick and Nova Scotia were next as I continued my quest eastwards.
I next set my sights on Newfoundland.
Prince Edward Island has but a small handful of municipalities so I have more space when I do the Canadian territories.
For the United States, as and when time and schedule permits, I visit municipal and county offices. During several trips to Arizona, including one specifically for pin collecting, I accumulated almost all Arizona local government pins. The Town of Parker was especially helpful as they had a display of pins from across the state and had spares of a lot of them. Since I lived in Washington for ten years, it was not a difficult task to visit the municipalities of the western half of the state.
It was while I was visiting Washington municipalities that I found out that the size of the town does not determine whether or not they have a pin. One would think that a larger town would have a pin while a smaller one not. This is not always the case.
Close-up of a few Washington State pins.
My pin collecting does not stop with local governments. Where they are available, I buy pins from musicals I have seen and non-railway museums.
Yes, of course I collect railway pins! This board is for fallen flag and existing railways in Canada and the United States.
Railway museums, special excursion trains and other train trips often produce pins. This is my collection of such, including steam engines that I have ridden behind.
This was a fun project to do and I enjoyed getting all the mail I did each day for ten years!| RETURN TO THE MAIN PAGE |