Olympic Pin Trading - BIG TIME!           

About Al...

Al Falcao has been a collector of various items since childhood. He began collecting stamps of the world and later specialized in First Day Covers of the US, UN and Canada. Al stopped collecting FDC's in 1997 while maintaining his focus on Olympic pins.

With his encouragement, Al's kids Faye and Fred, started collecting car license plates. Our collection includes a license plate for every state in the US, and, province and territory in Canada. We also completed a collection of baseball caps with every team in Major League Baseball covered.

Another one of Al's hobbies is music. He plays the piano and organ and loves to play for anyone's listening pleasure. Al played the piano on radio and TV in his youth and has entertained at a Toronto senior's home during the festive season. 

Al was at the Montreal Olympics in 1976. However, he was unaware of the existence of pins and cannot recall any pin trading activity at the Games! He caught the Olympic pin bug in mid-1988 following the Calgary Olympics. Al has been at every Olympics since 1992 and is busy trading pins with collectors around the world daily on the Web. He was invited to be a guest speaker at the 2000 Canadian Olympic Association (COA) Annual meeting of Sponsors & Licensees and made a multi-media 'Pins 101' presentation.  

World-wide TV, radio and print media has interviewed Al at every Olympics he's attended. A few days prior to the Sydney 2000 Summer Olympics,  he did radio interviews on 'Ontario Today', and, 'Metro Morning' hosted by Andy Barrie live on CBC 99.1 FM in Toronto.

From  Sydney, Al was interviewed by NBC's 'Today Show', Australia's ABC Channel 7, BBC TV & Radio, CBC's 'Sydney Today' & 'NewsWorld' among several other world-wide Olympic TV & Radio networks. He was also interviewed by TIME magazine on October 2, 2000 in 'Olympic Scene'. 

Al attended the '6 Months to Go' pin show at Salt Lake City's Salt Palace Convention Center in July 2001. He was privileged to meet and trade pins with Ross C. 'Rocky' Anderson, Mayor of Salt Lake City. The Mayor presented Al with a pin that was a symbolic 'key' to the City of Salt Lake. And, just prior to the Salt Lake 2002 Winter Olympics, Al was featured in a full page article in Toronto's Sunday Sun entitled "He's king of the pinheads...Markham's Al Falcao is a gold medallist in Olympic sport of collecting"

Al appeared on NBC Affiliate WGRZ -TV2, Buffalo, NY in an Athens 2004 Summer Olympics feature clip on Sports News anchored by Adam Benigni. While in Athens during the Olympics, Al met numerous prominent Greek personalities including Dora Bakogianni, Mayor of Athens.  

Just prior to the Torino 2006 Winter Olympics, Al was headlined as 'Pin kingpin'...a full page story  in the Toronto Sunday Sun. In Torino, he traded pins at the Coca-Cola Pin Trading Centre where he was accredited as a  'pin expert'. And, Eurovision Sports News a division of EBU (European Broadcasting Union) did an extensive interview with Al with a special focus on him trading pins for smiles with kids.  Check out his interview here Eurovision. 

Al will be at the Beijing 2008 Summer Olympics and is featured in an article 'Chasing the Dream' in The Costco Connection. He is also pictured in the Coca-Cola Beijing Pin Trading Guide and his friends at Magic Graphic, Beijing Office have included a Preface authored by Al in their pin handbook. In addition, Magic Graphic has opened up a blog for him at SINA.com.    
 
Al's collection of 35,000 different Olympic pins is displayed in several large glass encased frames hung on paneled walls in the basement of his home.

...Faye Cameron (nee Falcao)