Hunt on for Little Frat Pins by collectors

[hoosier]

December 2, 2005

Hunt on for Little Frat Pins
War waging against collectors who shop for Greek badges on eBay.

By CATHERINE SHARICK
Columbia News Service

Sigma Alpha Epsilon has a licensing firm. Kappa Kappa Gamma alumnae organized Keepers of the Key. Delta Psi formed a memorabilia committee. Psi Upsilon members are simply on the lookout -- for collectors who are buying and selling their initiation pins on the Internet.

College fraternities and sororities are waging a war against "pin heads" -- collectors who shop for Greek membership badges on eBay.

Fraternity brothers and sisters believe that these pins are their property, and that they have a legal right to them. They are doing everything they can to keep these insignias within the bonds of brotherhood and sisterhood and out of the hands of outsiders. While collecting isn't new, eBay has made it easier to acquire pins and harder for fraternities to control who is buying them.

"I've had fellows threaten to come to my house to repossess a badge from a long dead member," said Randall D. Craig, a fraternity pin collector from Georgetown, Texas. "I guess they think that I might pin one of these on and pose as a fraternity brother on a local campus."

Craig, 55, is one of the collectors who worry fraternity houses. A 1971 Tau Kappa Epsilon alumnus of Stephen F. Austen University in Nacogdoches, Texas, Craig became interested in collecting while trying to replace his long lost TKE pin. "The last time I saw the badge I was initiated with, I think it was on some girl's panties," he said, referring to the old-school tradition of pinning one's girlfriend.

Since 2000, Craig has collected 400 pins from antique stores, flea markets, estate sales and most recently, on eBay under the screen name dogboy1950. Craig, a high school teacher, estimates that 95 percent of his collection was purchased online.

"Since eBay, there has been an extreme explosion of collectors out there," said Christopher Walters, 32, a collector from Cincinnati, "mainly because without eBay, the pins were very hard to find." Without the Internet, collecting was done by a few "buffs" through a network of antique dealers and jewelers who knew about the pins and would contact the collectors when they came across something of interest. But many older, unique pins were melted down for the gold.

"Because of eBay, fraternities and sororities have been able to acquire pins they have never seen before," said Walters, who is working on a directory of all Greek letter organizations.

The exclusive Fraternity Pin Collector Society has an active, but secretive bulletin board presence on Yahoo groups. "They are the secret society of fraternity pin collecting," Walters said. "They are our Skull and Bones."

In order to get into this group, he said, you have to tell whom you know, what you collect and why. And if you offend anyone, the group can ban you and keep you out of Pinfest, the annual swap meeting.

"You will more than likely see the best of the best at Pinfest," Walters said. "They are the kings and queens of the frat pin collecting world. But they are also the most hated." Security at the swap is a concern because of the high value of collections -- $15,000 or more -- and the threat of disruption by fraternity members. As a result, Pinfest organizers post false dates and locations on their Web pages.

The small gold or gold-clad pins, often inscribed with the brother's or sister's name and pledge year, are slightly different for each organization. The insignia changes, and some are bejeweled. The most expensive are from older, well known groups. A Sigma Chi pin from the 1800s sold on eBay for almost $8,000.

Last year, someone tried to sell a Skull and Bones badge from 1852 for $14,000. Even though the seller had a picture of Michael Moore wearing the pin, the opening price was too high and the auction did not close, Walters said.

"The secret symbols that distinguish the badge-swords, skulls, shields and crosses are just nice design elements to me," Craig said, "but to the members, these designs have special significance."

To ardent fraternity brothers (and sisters), protecting these pins means protecting the sacred bonds of their organization. "We want to keep the brotherhood alive, even through death," said Richard Williams of Delta Psi.

When members die, SAE and other fraternities and sororities would like to have the badge returned to the foundation. Some fraternities and sororities, including Kappa Kappa Gamma and Delta Delta Delta, include in their bylaws a provision that initiation badges and pins are only "leased" to members while they are alive.

"We ask that when a member dies for him to be buried with his pin," said Nicholas Ziegler, coordinator of publications at SAE. But pins usually wind up lost, in someone's attic or most likely sold through estate sales on eBay.

Fraternities are hard at work bidding for the pins and tracking down collectors.

Sigma Alpha Epsilon, one of the largest fraternities with 280,000 members, hired a licensing firm, Affinity Marketing Consultants, to ensure that its trademark is used properly on mugs and T-shirts and to search eBay for its pins.

The firm helps SAE send e-mail messages to collectors on eBay asking them to stop the sale and turn the badge over to the fraternity.

Craig is not worried about the fraternities' crusade to put an end to his hobby.

"I treat the badges with respect," he said.