SAN DIEGO SUPER BOWL XXII HOST : Dealer Collars Market in Lapel Pin Trading

Kent Herkenrath was wheeling and dealing Saturday in the lobby of the San Diego Marriott, working out of a suitcase, discreetly exchanging his goods for cash or in trade for like items, and keeping an eye out for hotel security.

At one point two security guards came over and challenged him. He sweet talked himself out of being booted out of the lobby, but finally the tension of being watched grew too great.

He abruptly closed his briefcase, zipped his duffel bag and walked briskly out the front door. A half-dozen people followed him to his car in the parking lot, where business then continued.

This is a big weekend for Herkenrath. He trades, buys and sells Super Bowl lapel pins. He’s got most of the 50 or so different Super Bowl XXII pins on the market--representing the two contending teams, the various sponsors, the media and the like--as well as pins from previous Super Bowls.

He’s got pins for individual NFL teams. He’s even got baseball pins and pins from the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, where he first got smitten by the pin frenzy.

Herkenrath wasn’t making bundles of profits on his pins, selling most of them for $5 and $10, which is at or just below the going rate in town for such items, according to those who moseyed up to Herkenrath’s post in the hotel lobby.

He spread his goods out for all to see, and didn’t seem concerned about sticky fingers as persons freely picked them up and looked them over.

He explained the history of some pins, and why some are more valuable than others. The hottest item on Saturday: NFL pins that declared both the Washington Redskins and the Denver Broncos “World Champions.”

Five hundred pins of each were manufactured in advance for immediate sale today, he said; they became available for sale on Saturday and persons could buy both pins to cover their bets.

Besides, he noted, those pins which declare the wrong World Champions will quickly become collector’s items since no more of them will be produced, and because they will be wrong. Still, he was selling them for only $15.

Herkenrath used to work in public relations until 1984 when Peter Ueberroth, a friend of his from San Jose State college days, asked him to serve on a protocol committee for the Olympic Games.

He started some innocent Olympic pin trading which grew serious, and today Herkenrath operates “49er Faithful,” a sports memorabilia store in Mountain View where he has literally thousands of souvenir, collector pins for sale, as well as memorabilia of the San Francisco 49ers.

His favorite pin? A Super Bowl XXII pin--with the 49ers helmet logo and the saying, “San Diego Here We Come.”

“That’s my heartbreak pin,” he said.