DRAPER -- Seven-year-old Karlee Perry smiled shyly as her father showed off the Olympic pin she'd picked out to start her collection, a ghost design issued by the Salt Lake Organizing Committee to mark last Halloween.
With hundreds of pins spread out for sale Friday in a corner of the Factory Outlet Mall, why did she pick the scary-looking ghost over, say, a pin shaped like a pitcher of red punch or one that looks like an ice skate complete with working laces?"Because it glows in the dark," Karlee said.
She's too new at collecting to realize such a special feature may increase the value of her enameled lapel pin, as could having the date of the holiday stamped at the bottom next to the logo for the 2002 Winter Games.
Her dad, Lee Perry, knows better and couldn't be prouder of his daughter's decision. "It was totally her choice," he said. Perry, who works for the Utah Highway Patrol, has been collecting Olympic pins since he served on Gov. Mike Leavitt's security detail during Salt Lake City's bid.
It was on a 1994 trip with the governor to a meeting of the International Olympic Committee in Paris, France, that Perry was first handed an Olympic pin from one of the cities competing against Salt Lake City for the Games.
"I was hooked," Perry said. Now he trades law-enforcement pins from the Highway Patrol and other agencies. He came to the pin show Friday to see what he could add to his collection of nearly three dozen pins that are framed above his desk at work.
Olympic pins from law-enforcement agencies are among the most sought-after by collectors, said Jim Liddiard, one of the collectors who set up a table at the pin show. Liddiard expected to sell several pins distributed by the FBI, including a black one in the shape of the state of Utah priced at $50.
"I traded an (FBI) agent for four of them," Liddiard said. "He knew what he was doing."
The appeal of the pins, Liddiard said, comes from the involvement of so many different law-enforcement agencies in an Olympics. Officers from agencies throughout Utah as well as other parts of the country are expected to provide security during the 2002 Winter Games.
Not everyone at the show Friday was looking for pins shaped like fedoras or badges, however. The series of pins based on Utah's unique food preferences continued to draw attention. The first in the series, shaped like a bowl of green Jell-0, was available from Liddiard for $75.
The newer food pins, including that pitcher of red punch and a container of fry sauce, were selling at several tables for $6 or $7. A set that included a red Jell-O pin and a key chain shaped like the valuable green Jell-O pin was going for $12.
Customers like "anything with a Utah theme," said Sue Wolfe, a collector who said she didn't expect to make money at the three-day show. "I plan to break even," she laughed, noting she left her favorite pin, shaped like a stagecoach with wheels that spin, at home out of fear she'd sell or trade it.
"It's totally addictive," Wolfe said.