Since we’re celebrating the 10-year anniversary of Vancouver’s Olympic Games, you might want to dig out some of the things you collected during the big event.
Merchandizing was big business during the Olympics, but what do you do with all that stuff you collected? You might be wondering if it’s worth anything.
We asked our CTV News employees to bring their Olympic souvenirs so we could have it all analyzed by an expert.
We had pins, clothing, coins, Olympic mascots, a McDonald’s guest book from Olympic Village and other items.
Michael Chark has been a collector for 40 years and looked it all over.
“Everybody made a pin,” he said looking over the collections, “There’s too many, they’re indistinguishable from one another. An expensive pin is $10, $15, $20. It’s a hobby. It’s not a business.”
He’s says some of the Olympic clothing may have been worth something immediately following the Games, especially anything worn by an athlete.
The Olympic coins were a flop.
“The Royal Canadian Mint made a set of Olympic coins in the lead up to the games and they could not sell the set,” explained Chark.
Nor could the rebranded smaller coins sets generate much interest.
“Today? Very little demand,” said Chark.
CTV anchor Scott Hurst had saved his media access pass with a CTV Olympic pin and other pins attached to it.
“The person that put this together would have attachment and sentimental value to this item because it’s a very personal thing,” Chark added.
However, what stood out was the McDonald’s guest book from the Olympic Village, signed by many of the athletes.
“This would be something the general public couldn’t get. Something like this would be collectible," Chark said.
Chark especially liked that it was signed by Sidney Crosby, who scored the winning goal the Canadian hockey team. Hockey legend Wayne Gretzky had also signed it.
“Any of the Olympic stuff to do with hockey will be good,” Chark said.
But the value may be more sentimental, as was the case with almost all of the merchandize and souvenirs that we showed him.
If you ran with a torch for the 2010 Games it's still worth something Chark estimates the value at about $1,000.
However, it's more about the memories you collected than the stuff and memories are invaluable.
“The greatest thing about the 2010 Games in this city was how the city came together. All of this contributed to that,” he summed up.