Name: Janet W Grissom

From: Salt Lake City

How long have you been collecting? 10 years

How many pins do you own? 10,000

I was new to pin collecting. I was a volunteer during the Salt Lake Olympics and was working inside the Olympic Village. Three or four athletes from the Russian team saw me and they started to smile and laugh and point at me.

I didn't speak a world of Russian and they didn't speak a word of English. I wondered if I had my shirt inside out. Finally I realised they were pointing at the pins on the lanyard I was wearing. They started digging in their bags and pulled out these old aluminium Olympic pins that looked homemade. I didn't know it at the time but they were the pins that came from Russia in the 1980s. We traded about 10 pins and it was like communication without words through pins. We all were laughing and having fun.

I still have these pins in my collection and this experience was one of those rare moments where I realised what the Olympics was all about communication between different cultures and it occurred through the trading of pins. Ten years later I am still trading.