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saw this and wondered if anyone else would be interested in reading:
O Brother (and Sister), Where Art Thy Pins?
The New York Times Company, August 11, 2002
By KATHERINE ROSMAN
(a Kappa Kappa Gamma alumna member)
CLEVELAND -- In a basement room at the airport Sheraton here last month, 15 members of the Fraternity Pin Collector Society huddled around a conference table.
James Bond would have been proud of the planning. Information about the date and place of their sixth annual conference, called Pinfest, had been kept in strict confidence among members. A false date had been posted on the society's Yahoo Web page. Still, nerves were frayed. Occasionally, someone sneaked a look at the display behind them. Laid out on five banquet tables was perhaps the largest collection of vintage sorority and fraternity pins in the country. Affixed to swaths of velvet and displayed in glass cases were the group's collective glory: over 5,000 pins with a combined worth in the tens of thousands of dollars. Some were studded with pearls and diamonds. Many dated back to the 19th century.
After a cursory discussion of the tricks of their trade -- say, which small-town antiques shops might still harbor, unaware of its value, a Kappa Kappa Gamma pin from 1949 -- the conversation turned to the topic of the day, Mary Silzel.
To the rest of the world, Mary Silzel, 63, might be just another grandmother frittering away her senior years on eBay. But to those gathered at the Pinfest conference, she is the enemy -- a one-woman wrecking crew determined to keep them from collecting pins at any cost.
"She is militant," said one collector, who like most people in the room did not want his name used.
"Violent," another agreed. "Commando," a third whispered.
Although none of the collectors had actually met Mrs. Silzel, heads around the table bobbed in accord.
There is a battle raging in the electronic heart of the American marketplace, and Mary Silzel is smack in the middle. On one side are the collectors who spend hours on eBay looking for pins with historic or artistic value. On the other are people like Mrs. Silzel, loyal sorority and fraternity members who are spending thousands of dollars to keep their pins out of nonmembers' hands.
Their fervor has collectors watching their backs -- afraid of Greek loyalists and the angry e-mail messages they send -- and the price of pins skyrocketing. A Kappa Kappa Gamma pin that might have sold for $5 five years ago went for $1,025 last month to a sorority sister working in league with Mrs. Silzel.
A loyal 1956 Kappa Kappa Gamma alumna of Whitman College in Walla Walla, Wash., Mrs. Silzel joined this battle in early 1998, when she first ventured onto eBay and was, she said, shocked to find Kappa Kappa Gamma pins being bought by people who were not Kappa sisters. "I thought, 'How terrible!' " she recalled from her home office in Orange County, Calif.
Fueled by indignation, Mrs. Silzel went into action and was soon an eBay regular, outbidding deep-pocketed collectors for every Kappa pin she could click her mouse on.
It wasn't long before she realized that she needed reinforcements, and within months she formed Keepers of the Key, a group of about 40 sisters around the country, united in the effort to stop people who are, in Mrs. Silzel's words, "determined to steal our pins and then hold them ransom."
Nearly every Greek letter organization, known as a G.L.O., objects to outside ownership of its pins. But without the resources to purchase the increasing number of pins for auction (more than 100 are offered on eBay every week), national headquarters are searching for ways to keep pins from entering the open market.
When the administrators of Sigma Kappa sorority learn of the death of a member, for example, they mail what can only be characterized as a bereavement letter for the eBay age from their national vice president for alumnae affairs, Marianne Chattin Burton.
"DECEASED was a recognized member of our Sorority and she will be missed by many of her sisters," the letter reads. "As a member of Sigma Kappa, DECEASED was provided with a triangular-shaped badge bearing the Greek letters sigma kappa. . . . If DECEASED's badge was not buried with her, we would be most grateful if you would please return the badge to Sigma Kappa National Headquarters."
Hallmark it is not. But war is being waged, and the generals have scant time for niceties.
The retrieval of pins on eBay is left to grass-roots volunteers like Mrs. Silzel, who has emerged as the grande dame of electronic auction warfare. Her Keepers of the Key have spent more than $17,000 of their own money in the last two years to "rescue" nearly 100 pins, which they dispatch to the sorority's Heritage Museum in Columbus, Ohio, or sell to sorority sisters who have somehow lost theirs.
"We Kappas have a record of which we are proud," Mrs. Silzel said. "Other G.L.O.'s have varying degrees of dedication to the cause, but we Kappas have been on the cutting edge and are more passionate about the integrity of our badges than most."
Collectors, many of whom refuse to give their surnames because they fear an onslaught of e-mail from rabidly loyal Greek alumni, say that the healthy competition has turned ugly. "They dropped f-bombs!" a Pinfest attendee from Tennessee said, alluding to profane e-mail messages he says he has received.
Ian Marks, a founder of Pinfest and the only one there who did not ask for anonymity, said that angry sorority sisters posted information about where he lives and what pins he owns on a Greek Web site. "You have no idea how evil it is," he said of the hostility.
For Mr. Marks, his collection, which includes more than 1,000 pins from over 600 Greek organizations and others, like Yale's Skull and Bones, has become, as he puts it, "a huge security issue." For this reason, he says, "I carry my most valuable pins on my person."
Like many of the collectors, Mr. Marks is a Greek letter organization alumnus (Sigma Phi Epsilon), and insists that if not for people like him, vintage badges would have been melted down to scrap metal long before eBay.
On the subject of Kappa pins, he demanded: "Who would have known that Anna Elizabeth Willits made the first pin at Stevenson's in Pittsburgh in 1870? Who would know that? I do!" So does Mrs. Silzel. After all, 1870 was the year Kappa Kappa Gamma was founded, at Monmouth College, in Monmouth, Ill. But to her, the value of the pins lies not in their history, but in their hard-won exclusivity.
She said scornfully of collectors, "The very fact that they hold and resell merchandise that they know is likely lost or stolen makes them unequivocally unfit to be in the possession of a Kappa key, given the ideals to which we all pledged ourselves and which are symbolized to us and others by our badge."
Mrs. Silzel believes in a by-any-means-necessary approach to bringing Kappa keys "home to Kappa," as she puts it. She and her Keepers of the Key barrage owners of Kappa keys with e-mail messages, imploring them to sell or give up their keys.
She is also not above spying. Despite efforts by the founders of Pinfest to hide the conference site, Mrs. Silzel planted a mole at the scene. Unbeknown to those at the conference, Stephanie Lou Haymond, with her flowing blond hair and bright smile, was not, as she maintained, starting a collection to display at her Greek memorabilia store in Salt Lake City, but gathering information on Kappa Kappa Gamma pins and their owners, so that Keepers of the Key could later target them with e-mail messages and bid against them on eBay.
Members of Mrs. Silzel's army do occasionally get burned by the opposition. In July, Ms. Haymond found herself in an eBay bidding war with tyoregon over a 1938 Kappa pin. After five days of bidding, Ms. Haymond vanquished tyorgeon with a bid of $511. Congratulatory notes flooded the Keepers' chat room. "Great save, Stephie Lou!" said one.
But after the adrenaline rush faded, Ms. Haymond found herself with buyer's remorse. It wouldn't be so bad, she said, if her husband had not found out. "Now he thinks I'm a freak."
According to tyoregon, the eBay handle of an Oregonian who didn't want his name published because he said he had received one too many threatening e-mail messages from angry sorority sisters, the truth was worse than Ms. Haymond imagined. "I bid her up," tyoregon said, adding that he decided early in the auction that he did not want the pin. "Why not have fun," he asked, adding that he had grown weary of Greek letter organization alumni throwing around terms like sacred. "You're not going to find pins in the Ark of the Covenant," he said.
Maybe not. But there are nine million Greek alumni out there, many with pins in their junk drawers that could fetch hundreds of dollars. The proliferation may drive eople like Mrs. Silzel into litigation she has so far avoided. Most fraternities and sororities have bylaws proclaiming pins leased for life to members. By these standards, any pin making its way to eBay is stolen property.
For its part, eBay is not obliged to abide by a sorority's rules and requires documented proof of theft before it will delist an item. While Greek organizations are becoming increasingly protective of their trademarks -- some even hiring brand consultants -- so far, none have been willing to risk an expensive lawsuit.
In the meantime, Mrs. Silzel and her Keepers of the Key will continue their crusade, as she calls it, which she believes honors their bonds of sisterhood. "There is no profit involved, no prestige, no recognition," Mrs. Silzel said. "Simply the reward of helping a Kappa sister retrieve a lost piece of her heart."
ALPHA XI DELTA STATEMENT
Alpha Xi Delta Fraternity Headquarters is aware that many sisters (including Headquarters staff) watch for Quills being on eBay. Some sellers or collectors are more kind than others to work with. And, it is true that some Alpha Xi Deltas have sent unkind emails to sellers about selling Greek badges.
It is true that when you pay for your badge, it is considered a "lifelong leasehold" and not a purchase. If a seller has a badge, the only way he or she could have taken possession of it would be if a member or a member’s family sold it or gave the badge away. That's not the sellers fault.
Alpha Xi Delta asks that you not ridicule or harass others for selling Alpha Xi Delta badges. While the sale of badges is shocking and appalling, at this time, the only way to stop a sale of a badge is to prove that it was stolen from the “rightful” owner.
Each initiated member must care for her badge. Only by specifically providing for your Quill can you be reasonably certain that it will end up in the proper hands, and not in a flea market or online auction. Make a specific provision in your will as to where your Quill should go when you die. If you do not have a will, make your wishes very clear to your heirs. Another option worth considering, particularly if your Quill is jeweled, is donating it to a specific Alpha Xi Delta chapter for use as a rotating recognition or award pin.
Our Quills are beautiful and precious, please care for your badge properly to ensure it stays in Alpha Xi Delta hands.
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