“New” Detroit Curling Club Pin

A “new” DCC pin has been discovered and acquired through eBay.   This is the first and only pin of its kind that I have seen or heard about.  I am calling it the FLAG pin since its design is based upon the flag of the city of Detroit.   The flag was originally designed in 1907, but was not adopted by the city until 1948.  A curious pin design that (other than the wording “Detroit Curling Club”) does not include stone, a broom, an event or a date.

When and why was this pin produced?  I asked the eBay seller how and where she acquired it and if she had any more information about the pin.  She told me that she obtained it in a group of over 3 dozen pins from an estate sale in Florida.  Looking through the other pins, we discovered that based upon their age it appeared the original owner built the collection in the 1940s and 50s.  Secondly, there were quite a few Scottish pins and most of the others were from clubs in the eastern USA.  This flag pin and a DCC club pin were the only ones from the Midwest.

Taking all of this into account, my guess is that the original owner visited Detroit with the Scottish Tour Team in 1949.  I assume this was a limited production run and the pins were given as gifts to the members of the Scots Team.  This would not be the first time that The Club did this.  In 1912 a special pin was produced and given to the Scottish curlers who visited Detroit in the 1912 Tour.  We wrote about this 1912 pin previously and you can read that article HERE. 

It is interesting that The Club produced these pins as gifts for our visitors, but did not give or sell them to our members.  If they had distributed some to our members, you would think that we would have seen more of them either within pin collections or on eBay.

We now have another mystery of the Detroit Curling Club.  If you have seen either of these pins, or if you can offer any information to help solve this mystery, please contact me.

Live long and prosper,

Angus MacTavish