About Me
I am a collector of Olympic tickets and, frustrated with the seeming absence of a dedicated collectors community for this hobby, have created my own site to show off my collection and hopefully generate some discussion upon this area of Olympic memorabilia. My hope is to create a community of ticket collectors and, one day, to grow to AICO membership status.
My interest is specific to tickets and passes for viewing athletics events and I have little interest in collecting full sets of every session and date. My interest is collecting different designs of ticket. Whilst that may appear a very narrow and limited area to collect, I have over 170 different designs and types of tickets, with no duplicates, and I continue to find more on a regular basis. My collection extends to stadium and 'all venues' passes and includes specialist tickets specific to the press, attending athletes, dignitaries and members of the military.
The inevitable question is 'why should I be interested in Olympic tickets?'
First and foremost, I consider these items to be great pieces of design. They are, quite simply, interesting and often beautiful to look at.
If you wanted to adopt a more technical approach, it can be said that such tickets demonstrate the progress of graphic design and the technical advances in paper and anti-counterfeiting technologies during the last century. From the early stages, tickets were produced by companies who made banknotes and security bonds and employed multiple complex techniques to prevent reproduction. As I will be commenting in more detail upon the individual pages for each Games, these tickets demonstrated the introduction of, amongst other things, watermarks, metallic strips, non-standard paper materials, barcodes, holograms and even, recently, self-contained electronic computer chips. As printing technologies improved, the designs were able (and were required) to become more elaborate, changing from one-colour tickets at the start of the century to the complex multi-colour designs we see today.
Furthermore, to me, these tickets are tangible links to the past. They sat in the pockets of people who watched extraordinary feats by some of the great athletes of our time. These tickets and their owners were often present at moments which defined not only the sporting century, but the century entire:
I hope very much that my collection is of interest to you. My knowledge of Olympic tickets is far from complete and I welcome your comments or advice, which may be added to my blog page. My collection is also very far from complete and I would be very interested to hear from people who possess tickets that are not shown on this site.
My interest is specific to tickets and passes for viewing athletics events and I have little interest in collecting full sets of every session and date. My interest is collecting different designs of ticket. Whilst that may appear a very narrow and limited area to collect, I have over 170 different designs and types of tickets, with no duplicates, and I continue to find more on a regular basis. My collection extends to stadium and 'all venues' passes and includes specialist tickets specific to the press, attending athletes, dignitaries and members of the military.
The inevitable question is 'why should I be interested in Olympic tickets?'
First and foremost, I consider these items to be great pieces of design. They are, quite simply, interesting and often beautiful to look at.
If you wanted to adopt a more technical approach, it can be said that such tickets demonstrate the progress of graphic design and the technical advances in paper and anti-counterfeiting technologies during the last century. From the early stages, tickets were produced by companies who made banknotes and security bonds and employed multiple complex techniques to prevent reproduction. As I will be commenting in more detail upon the individual pages for each Games, these tickets demonstrated the introduction of, amongst other things, watermarks, metallic strips, non-standard paper materials, barcodes, holograms and even, recently, self-contained electronic computer chips. As printing technologies improved, the designs were able (and were required) to become more elaborate, changing from one-colour tickets at the start of the century to the complex multi-colour designs we see today.
Furthermore, to me, these tickets are tangible links to the past. They sat in the pockets of people who watched extraordinary feats by some of the great athletes of our time. These tickets and their owners were often present at moments which defined not only the sporting century, but the century entire:
- The owners of my ehrenkarte tickets for Berlin in 1936 were sat mere metres from the Fuhrer himself. The press ticket for that Games witnessed Jesse Owens shatter the illusion of Aryan supremacy.
- My ticket for 6th September 1972 saw the Olympic flag flown at half mast, whilst a stadium full of people mourned the terrorist atrocities of the previous day when Israeli athletes were abducted from the Olympic Village and murdered at Munich airport.
- The handprinted ticket for Woldenberg 1944 saw prisoners of war find strength in the Olympic spirit after years of captivity.
- The spectators in Montreal in 1976 saw the sports field and hall used as a Cold War battlefield, as the USA and USSR sought to demonstrate the supremacy of their political systems through sporting success.
- The Barcelona Games of 1992 followed the collapse of the Soviet Union. Countries which sprang from the ashes of the Soviet block, yet to be fully recognised on the World stage, competed under the Olympic flag to allow the spirit of the Olympic Games to flourish by seeking to separate politics from sport.
I hope very much that my collection is of interest to you. My knowledge of Olympic tickets is far from complete and I welcome your comments or advice, which may be added to my blog page. My collection is also very far from complete and I would be very interested to hear from people who possess tickets that are not shown on this site.