Jaycees Dukes of Hazzard Pins - I Got Them All!

I did it!  I tracked them all down!  I got every Dukes of Hazzard Jaycees Pin from 1982 and 1983!  I'm so excited! 

Let's review.  A few months ago I started a new obsession when I bought 13 Dukes pins that I really didn't know anything about.  Once I got them, I fell down a rabbit hole exploring the history of the Jaycees, also known as the United States Junior Chamber of Commerce.  State chapters of the Jaycees produced pins each year for their convention that were meant to be traded to promote interaction with members.  Trading pins made it easier to make new friends.  The Jaycees have been making pins for decades and each state created pins that represented their area that year.  In '82 and '83 Georgia made Dukes pins because everyone loved the Dukes.  Iowa also got in the Dukes fun in '82.  I spoke with Jaycees experts and learned a lot about the organization and about this pins.  

Check out my first post on the Jaycees Dukes of Hazzard pins

Something fun that came from that post was an anonymous comment which enlightened me as to why Iowa made Dukes pins.  Ken Behrens was the Administrative Vice President of the Iowa Jaycees in 1981-1982 and the President in 1982-1983.  He fashioned himself to be very much like Jefferson Davis Hogg and even took the nickname Boss Hogg.  He was responsible for the Dukes Iowa pins.  That's great info.  I really love the comments I get on the blog, but please don't be anonymous, reach out so we can interact.  I'd love to know who posted that and wish that we could talk more about it.  

Ok, back to the new pins.  

 

Thanks to help of two collectors, I completed the set and now have all twenty-one Jaycees Dukes of Hazzard pins.  Almost immediately after posting my first pins article, a collector named Kevin reached out to me.  Kevin has been in the Jaycees pin trading world for a long time and wanted to help me complete the collection.  He had a couple of pins I needed and had many contacts to other collectors.  Kevin worked very hard to track down several pins and I'm so grateful.  He also helped me get a few non-Dukes pins that I'll talk about toward the end of this post.  Kevin helped me find all but four of the pins I needed.  Once I got the pins from Kevin in, and I was down to the final four, I reached out to another Dukes collector named Sandra who happened to have the four I needed.  Everything worked out perfectly and I tracked down all the pins.  I made a new friend in Sandra and look forward to talking Dukes with her in the future.  Thanks so much Kevin and Sandra!

 

The first pin in this post seems to be the last pin in the Georgia set.  This is the 1983 minor trading pin called the It's Time General Lee.  The text on the pin reads "It's time to be on the road again."  This pin gives the impression that it was traded at the end of the event right before it was time to leave.  The General is driving away past a billboard.  It's a great image.  You can see the outline of one of the Duke Boys in the passenger window.  I really like this pin.

Next up is a 1982 Georgia Senator pin.  The text reads "Boss Hogg Georgia Jaycees Senate" on the pin.  

It looks identical to the minor trading pin of the same year, just smaller.  Boss Hogg got a lot of love in the pin set.  Jaycees emphasize leadership training based on business development and management skills and Boss Hogg was the titan of business and industry in Hazzard County, so it's understandable that he gets so much attention from the Jaycees. 

Another Boss Hogg pin is the 1983 Sentate pin.  It features Boss Hogg stomping on his hat.  I'm sure the Dukes just foiled one of Boss's schemes and cost him to miss out on a lot of dirty money.  The action on this pin is a lot of fun.

Four pins of the seventeen from Georgia are Boss Hogg pins.  They must really have loved their crooked politicians!  Purely fictional of course.  

Daisy got another pin in 1983.  This is the woman's trading pin that says Georgia Jaycettes.  This time she's sitting on a peach crate drinking a...Coca-Cola!  Daisy Duke on a peach crate drinking a Coke!  Can you get more Georgia than that?  The crate and Coke also show up on...

Though he was absent in 1982, 1983 saw everyone's favorite shade tree mechanic get his own Jaycees pin.  Cooter is the major trading pin.  And would you look at that, he's leaning on a peach crate and drinking a Coke!

These two pins are made to be together.  I'm a big fan of Coca-Cola, as seen by these custom Dukes Coke bottles.  I love how the Dukes and Coke are together on these pins.  The Daisy pin, which says Jaycettes on it, is the woman's trading pin and Cooter is the kid's trading pin.  

I showed Boss's Caddy above in the Boss Hogg group shot, but it deserves a picture by itself.  Referred to as the On-To Chariman trader pin, The Cadillac is very well represented and even has the bull horns on the front.  It's throwing dust even though no one is driving it.  

Cooter didn't just get a pin of himself in the '83 series, his faithful tow truck also shows up.  Cooter had to be the hardest working man in Hazzard.  If he wasn't towing and repairing the General Lee, he was fishing Enos's patrol car out of the pond or pulling Rosco's out of a tree.  Cooter was always busy.  It's the kid's trader pin.  

The biggest pin of the 1983 set is the Delegate pin, just like in the '82 pins.  This time the General Lee isn't alone.  The pin collectors I spoke with referred to this as the General Lee crash scene, but us Dukes fans know the General Lee isn't crashing, it's "skiing" on two wheels to get away from Rosco!  

Possum on a gum bush!  Rosco and Boss can be seen watching them Duke Boys get away.  Rosco is only a silhouette, but you can see Boss with a dumbfounded look on his face.  This is the only time we see a Hazzard Patrol Car on the Georgia pins.  That's strange as I would consider the police car as the second most seen car on the show.  

This is the only pin that's sorta 3D.  The General is a separate piece on top of the patrol car.  It makes for a cool effect.  

 

The two biggest pins in the set are the 1982 General Lee Delegate pin and the 1983 General Lee Delegate pin.  The Delegates must have wanted the best pins all for themselves.  

More than half of the 1983 pins have a different type of pin back.  Only the Gen'ral and Daisy have the standard pin back, along with teeny Boss Hogg from 1982.  The rest have a pin mechanism that makes them hard to attach to a board.  

Speaking of attaching them to a board.  I found an odd wicker circle thing in the closet of my office.  I didn't want these beauties in a box and wanted a nice way to show them off.  The wicker circle thing did the trick.  Kevin asked me if I was looking for any other pins while he was helping me find the Dukes pins.  I told him it would be cool to have a couple very general Jaycees pins to add to the display.  He sent me this classic US Jaycees pins that I added to the top of the display.  It has 68/69 on the back of it.  I wonder if it's about fifteen years older than the Dukes pins.  

Kevin also gave me this great Georgia Jaycees pin.  It looks great with the Georgia Dukes pins.  

And finally he sent me this Iowa Jaycees pin.  I liked the idea of displaying the two states that gave us the Dukes Jaycees pins.  I'm really glad the members of the Georgia and Iowa Jaycees loved the Dukes of Hazzard so much that they incorporated it into their organization's history.  

I'm so excited that I tracked down all twenty-one pins.  It sure wasn't easy.  The wicker circle thing does it's job of displaying the pins pretty nicely.  I've spoken with several pin collectors and fellow Dukes collectors and no one knows of any other collectors that has a complete set.  Do you have one?  How did you get them all?  I love talking to fellow collectors!  This pin set definitely has a special place in the Dukes of Hazzard collection!