Jaycees Pins. I finally got some, and now I gotta have more! I've been aware of these little metal beauties, but I didn't really know what they were. I had one, and only one, in my collection for a few years now. I wrote about it in a blog in 2017. Even then I said I wanted them all. I'm getting closer. In that post I wrote that I had no idea why they were created or even what the Jaycees were. Well that's changed. I researched the pins and spoke to some experts and now I'm pretty educated on these pins. Follow me down the Jaycees Pins rabbit hole, cause it's a lot of fun!
First off, let me talk a little about the Jaycees. Jaycees also means JCs, which stands for the Junior Chamber. The official name is The United States Junior Chamber of Commerce. It's a civic organization that emphasizes leadership training based on business development, management skills and community service. The organization was established in 1915 and is still going strong today. The Jaycees is a branch of the JCI, the Junior Chamber International. One of the many things Jaycees are know for are their pins. Pins are produced by local Jaycee chapters to be traded at national conventions. Each chapter creates pins that are meant to be traded with members from other states. The main purpose of pin trading is to promote communication between members. You make new friends while trading pins. Each year, pins are created that are representative of each state. There are outline pins that are in the shape of the states that can be put together to form the shape of the country and other pins that show off the state's unique traits. Producing new themes that represent each state for years and years and decades and decades has created some unique pins. California would celebrate Hollywood, Hawaii could have pineapples, and New York could have skyscrapers, but what do you do next year? Georgia could only have so many peach pins. Chapters would try to show off what's hot in their neck of the woods. There are Jaycees pins representing the Muppets from New Jersey, Garfield in Indiana, DC Superheros from Ohio, and Disney from Florida. During the early '80s, nothing was hotter in Georgia than the Dukes of Hazzard. The show represented the state at the 1982 convention and again in 1983. Iowa also produced Dukes pins, though I'm not sure what the connection was. They probably just loved the show, like we all do.
Now that we got a little history on the Jaycees and where the pins came from, let's take a look and the ones I recently got and I'll discuss the ones I still need. Luckily, between my collection and the magnificent collection of our pal, Dave DeWitt, we have all the pins. He has some that I don't, and I have some he doesn't, but at least we have a handle on which ones are out there. While researching the pins, I also spoke with two Jaycees pins supercollectors that helped me a great deal with all this info. They have fabulous websites dedicated to their collections of pins. Thom of Thom's Jaycee Pin Collection and Tom of Pinsource Trading Pins Database. Thom explained to me that each pin served a purpose and they were given to different types of members. I really appreciate all the info I got from Thom and Tom, so you can definitely check out both of their sites for loads of info and tons of pictures of all the thousands of different pins in their collections.
There are seventeen total Georgia Jaycees pins. I have nine. The pins representing the characters are all basically scaled to be the same size. Uncle Jesse is a little shorter than the rest. There is an additional Boss Hogg pin that is smaller than the rest that I don't have, but I'll explain that later. The vehicles are all different sizes. I'll go over each pin soon.
The Iowa Jaycees pins are just vehicles, no characters. They are about the same size as the Georgia character pins and all similar in size to each other. I have all four of them. Thom explained to me that the Iowa pins aren't exactly trader pins like most Jaycees pins but actually incentive pins used by the Iowa state president in 1982. The president would award these pins to members for different outstanding efforts such as recruitment. Though some members did trade these pins, most held on to them. Thom says these four pins are much more rare than the Georgia Dukes pins. He said most of the Georgia pins were produced by the thousands but these four only had a few hundred of each produced. I'm glad I got all four of them together.
Let's take a look at each individual pin. Of course I'm going to start with Bo. Thom broke down the use for each pin for me. Bo was produced in 1982 and is referred to as a major trader pin. The major trading pins as well as the minor trading pins have the biggest production numbers. For the most part Bo looks great. I love the inclusion of the blue t-shirt under Bo's signature yellow shirt. Bo is wearing a hat, which he never really wore on the show. The designer must have been referencing the early press photos that were used on a lot of merchandising. If you've been on this here blog for a little while, you know what I mean. Each Georgia pin says Georgia Jaycees and this one also says Bo on it. This one is definitely one of my favorites.
Luke looks just as good as Bo. Luke is also a major trading pin. Luke is styled after his early episodes look when he wore a denim jacket on top of his blue shirt. The blue plaid shirt would have added too much detail and probably wouldn't have looked right. Luke is another great pin.
There are different categories of pins. I'll make a chart after we go through them all to reviewing each category. Daisy's pins is referred to as a woman's trading pin. When going to a convention, the whole family was involved and everyone took pins to trade. Daisy is in a classic sexy pose, though how many times can we ever remember Daisy posing like this? She didn't have to try to be sexy, she's Daisy Duke! Her outfit is the classic Daisy look, red top and signature cut-offs. Another really cool pin.
The Georgia Jaycees didn't leave anyone out. Uncle Jesse was a minor trading pin also produced in 1982. The Duke patriarch is holding a jug of his finest moonshine in one hand and, I think, his hat in the other. This pin, though it definitely resembles Uncle Jesse, is not as faithful to the show as the other Dukes. His outfit doesn't have the specific details correct. Jesse always wore a light brown shirt under his overalls, not blue and his hat was always red. That's why I can't be sure if he's carrying his hat in his hand, because it's black on the pin, but I think it's a hat. We all know that Uncle Jesse made a pact with the US of A government to never make moonshine again in order to keep his nephews out of jail. He's surely not making any more 'shine in this pin, because he never, not once, produced any after making that pact, not in High Octane, or any other Dukes adventure, except in High Octane and in a few other Dukes adventures. Yup, the jug of moonshine is a good addition for Uncle Jesse.
In addition to the Dukes family, pins were produced for the "law" in Hazzard County. First up is Jefferson Davis Hogg, J. D. for short, but you can just call him Boss. Boss Hogg is the second minor trading pin. Thom tells me that major and minor trading pins were probably produced in the same numbers. Maybe the major pins were the main event, big ticket pins, and the minor pins sweetened the deal. Boss is classic. Standing tall in his snow-white three piece suit, he's even sporting his signature cigar. This is the first of three Georgia Jaycees Boss Hogg pins and the only one I have. I'll go over the others later in this post.
The final character pin I have is Sheriff Rosco P. Coltrane, but he isn't alone. His precious velvet ears, Flash, is with him on this pin. Rosco rarely went anywhere without his faithful companion. It seems the Duke Boys got away again and Rosco is waving his fist and about to slam his hat. Flash is ok with it. The Georgia Jaycees made a slight faux pas by spelling Rosco's name with an E on the end. It's forgivable though and a common mistake. But I know from experience that James Best didn't like it when the mistake was made on products bearing his character's name.
The biggest pin of them all is the General Lee, naturally. The Gen'ral appears on several pins, but what seems to be the main representation of our favorite car is the 1982 Georgia Jaycees Delegate pin. According to the experts, not everyone got a delegate pin to trade away. The state Delegate is the liaison between the local and state chapters. They travel to different chapters and assist with networking within the Jaycee organization. For all their hard work, they get special pins that recognize them as Delegates. If you're going with the Dukes of Hazzard theme and want some members to stand out and be seen, you give them the General Lee. It's the symbol of the show, after all. I bet this was the most sought after pin in the bunch. It captures everything about our favorite car. The General isn't just sitting still, its burning up the back roads and leaving a trail of dust behind it. The pin got the push bar right and the flag and 01 look great. Toy companies for the golden era, such as Mego and Knickerbocker could have learned a few things about the General Lee's details from the designer of this Georgia Jaycees pin.
The pin is about this size of two character pins. These three pins look great together. If you can only get three, these would be the ones to get. Luckily no one has to choose and there are many more available. I, myself, want them all!
Another pin that the state organization produces is the outline pin. If you collect every outline pin from every state that year, you could put together a map of the US of A, as Uncle Jesse puts it. The General Lee is busting out of Georgia, representing how the Dukes of Hazzard was a huge hit not just in Georgia, or south of the Mason Dixon, but all over the country and all over the world. Or they just wanted to make the General Lee a little bigger than the shape of the state. I like the first idea.
The same image of the General Lee is used on both the delegate pin and the outline pin, just scaled differently. It's a heck of an image.
My final Georgia pin, so far, is the Daisy's Dixie Jeep pin. This falls under the category of kid's trading pin. The Jaycees welcomes everyone along to the pin trading fun, even the youngins. Daisy's CJ-7 Jeep Golden Eagle is as iconic as the General Lee. Another tiny faux pas, I'm using that word a lot for some reason, is the usage of "Daisy" on the hood instead of "Dixie." But, again, that mistake was made on other Dukes merchandise such as Ertl's 1/25 diecast Dixie Jeep so we are going to let the Georgia Jaycees slide on this one. Just not hood slide, because you do that on the General Lee, not the Jeep, it's too high. The eagle on the hood looks great on this pin. This is a really well done representation of Daisy's Dixie.
Thom laid out all the Dukes of Hazzard pins that were produced by the Georgia Jaycees for me. I didn't realize until I started writing about the General Lee Georgia outline pin that I only had the ones made in 1982. I don't have any form 1983. Maybe the person I got them from went to the convention in '82, but didn't make it to the '83 get together. There is only one from '82 that I don't have. I'll chart them all out later in this post.
Let's travel northwest from Georgia to Iowa. Can anyone figure out a connection between Iowa and the Dukes? I'm sure they just loved it as much as everyone else did. Maybe the Iowa Jaycees thought they had a great idea in 1982 and didn't think Georgia would have thought of the Dukes and it made for an awkward situation when they met up at the convention. Maybe not because these weren't exactly trader pins as Thom pointed out. These were incentive pins awarded to members for outstanding efforts. I can't think of a better was to award outstanding people than to pin a General Lee on them. The General Lee Iowa pin is a profile of our favorite car in front of the bars of the rebel flag. If you were to wear this pin on something red, you would complete the flag. It is a very nice rendition of the Gen'ral. Each Iowa pin included the car and some kind of background. The backgrounds make the pins stand out and add a really cool detail.
The Iowa Dixie Jeep pin looks similar to the Georgia Dixie pin, but it is not the same image. This is a slightly different angle of the Jeep. The artwork is different. Iowa got the Dixie on the hood detail correct. This is a great image of the Jeep and the Golden Eagle background is very cool. This is one of the best Iowa pins.
Iowa also represented Rosco's patrol car, something that Georgia didn't in 1982. The General and Jeep don't have anything else written on them, but the two "bad guys" cars do. Ok, I can't call Boss and Rosco the bad guys. Sure they were the antagonists of the show, but the actual bad guys were always the crooks or con men that Boss would hire each week. Or the guests like Huey Hogg. He was definitely a bad guy. Boss and Rosco aren't bad guys. Back to the pins. The Rosco's car pin has Hazzard County above the car on the big star that represents the Hazzard Sheriff logo. This is probably my least favorite artwork of any of the Dukes Jaycees pins. The police car looks like a generic drawing of a car and doesn't really scream Dukes of Hazzard. If I were to guess, I'd say it's modeled after the incorrect Ertl 1/64 Rosco car that is actually a Pontiac Bonneville and not a Dodge Monaco or Plymouth Fury. The star looks more like a Hollywood walk of fame star than the Sheriff logo we know and love. It's still a great pin, and if it's the worst, they must all be great.
The final Iowa pin shows off Boss Hogg's Cadillac and the background is Boss's signature white hat. Boss's Caddy is also a profile like the General and Rosco's car. I wonder why they went with another angle on only the Jeep? All three cars are also facing right and showing off the passenger side of the car with the exception of the Jeep. This is another great pin that captures two very recognizable aspects of the most important man in Hazzard. Iowa Jaycees made great Dukes of Hazzard pins. I'm honored to have these honor pins in my collection.
The back of the Iowa Jaycees pins have some sort of logo on them as well as the word Taiwan, which means they were made there. I can't make out the logo or read what it says.
All of the Iowa pins have the same logo. The Georgia pins are blank on the back. It's interesting that the Georgia pins are made of a gold colored metal while the Iowa pins are silver colored. There are a couple different variations of the pin backs.
So I have a total of 13 pins. There are eight other ones that I don't have. Luckily Dave DeWitt has all of the ones I don't have and he shared pictures with us. All of these are from 1983 with one exception.
The Boss Hogg pin in the top right is smaller than the one I have. It is the 1982 Senator's pin. The Jaycees Senate is an independent organization that works in conjunction with the Jaycees to promote and help the local, state, and national organization. All of the other pins are from 1983 and I need to add them to my collection. Anyone have any to sell? Let's brake them all down:
1982 Iowa Jaycees Incentive Pins
General Lee
Dixie Jeep
Rosco's Patrol Car
Boss Hogg's Cadillac
1982 Georgia Jaycees Trader Pins
Bo Duke - Major Trader Pin
Luke Duke - Major Tader Pin
Uncle Jesse - Minor Trader Pin
Boss Hogg (large) - Minor Trader Pin
Rosco and Flash - Minor Trader Pin
Daisy (standing) - Woman's Trader Pin
Dixie Jeep - Kid's Trader Pin
General Lee Georgia Pin - State Outline Pin
General Lee - Official Delegate Pin
Boss Hogg (small) - Senator's Pin
1983 Georgia Jaycees Trader Pins
Cooter - Major Trading Pin
Cooter's Tow Truck - Kid's Trading Pin
Daisy Sitting On Crate - Woman's Trading Pin
General Lee On Two Wheels - Official Delegate Pin
Boss Hogg Stomping His Hat - Seantor's Pin
Boss Hogg's Cadillac - On-To Chairman Trader Pin
General Lee It's Time - Minor Trader Pin
Cooter is well represented in the second series. Boss and Daisy also get additional pins and the the Caddy and Tow Truck join the fun. I'm surprised Georgia didn't produce a pin that just represents Rosco's patrol car, but it does make an appearance with the General on a 1983 pin. Both Thom and Tom refer to this pin as the General Lee crash scene pin, but I see it as the General Lee skiing past Rosco, up on two side wheels like the General Lee was know to do. I didn't go into detail about the 1983 pins, because I don't have them. I need them. I gotta have 'em!
Now I have to find the pins I don't have. Anyone have any leads? Anyone know of any for sale? I guess they are meant to be traded. I got a General Lee Delegate Pin I can trade! The hunt continues. Hopefully I can write a new post soon detailing the 1983 pins after I add them to the collection!
impressive
ReplyDeleteJust as additional info on the Iowa Jaycee pins, the 81-82 Admin VP (and 82-83 President) who chose the design for the pins was Ken Behrens. He was a large man who took the nickname of Boss Hogg during his campaigns. His manner was that of a good old Southern Boy. He was killed in a car accident in Georgia in 2013 on his way to the watch the Hawkeyes play in the Outback Bowl.
ReplyDeleteI appreciate you sharing that information. Sorry to hear about his passing.
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