Posts Tagged ‘Collectible Pins’

Collecting Nursing Pins: A Novice’s Overview

Friday, July 23rd, 2010

Nursing pins are  growing into a hot collectors item these days, and I’d like to  share some info about their background and origins. One of  the most standard varieties of nursing pins is those that are  associated to the college from which the nurse received  their diploma.  Even today most new nurses get a nursing pin from their institution  when they finish their studies, so there is a continuous supply of new pins  on the market.

Due to their significance to each  specific nurse, nursing pins have become a highly common item. You can buy pins  from nursing schools dating back to the 1800s if you  search hard enough, and they can sometimes fetch prices in the 1000s of  dollars.  Of course, these pins are tough to  get and costly, so it’s more likely that you’ll begin your  collection with pins from more modern times which are far easier and  cheaper to buy.

Just over 100 year ago nursing schools started to  expand, leading to a great growth in the number and variety of nursing pins being produced.  Today there are close to 1600 nursing  schools in operation, and over the years numerous others have closed  down or merged with each other. This abundance of pins on the market for the hard core collector today.

The early nursing pins are normally exquisite pieces, as they were  ordinarily all hand produced  by skillful craftsmen.  Although they’re hard to get,  these pins are naturally highly extremely valued by experienced  collectors.  Still, most collectors will  content themselves with the virtually endless amount of more  modern pins which are available.  As you can imagine, numerous collectors are or were nurses  .  Frequently they get into the habit of collecting by  simply surfing through old pins for their own  schools.

The  cyberspace is a huge gift for anyone who wants to begin collecting nursing  pins, especially well-known auction-style sites.  It’s easy to find a huge  range of pins from numerous periods, and because they are so easy to  get it’s highly easy to compare prices and get a feel for the market.  Searching for nursing pins in any search  engine is in all likelihood not a good way to go however, as you’ll find mainly pin providers, not collectors.  

Having new nursing pins made|created|made]] is simple thanks to the internet, so if that’s what you are looking for, you’re in the right place.Experience is the key here and you want to make sure that whatever business you choose is able to show you what they’ve made for other clients.  If you know someone who has had a great experience with buying custom pins before, be sure to get their opinion and, if viable, use the company they utilized for their pins.