Hard Rock Café:
What can I say? This is where my pin collecting started. It was the summer of 1987 in San Francisco at the Hard Rock Café when I bought my first HRC pin, a blue and white no name flying V. From there I just kept buying more pins whenever I went to a new Hard Rock. By 1999 Hard Rock had opened so many Café’s and made so many pins that it was getting to be overwhelming to try and collect everything, so I got rid of just about everything except for the early pins. Today that’s pretty much all I have left, the pre 1992 pins. There are four areas I specialize in, in no particular order they are:
The Original Hard Rock America City Specific Horizontal Les Paul’s:
I really like the simplicity of these pins. There are 64 known variations (counting mesh, eyeball and grid backs) and I have all 64, which is the most of any collection known. This must be the most difficult set of all Hard Rock Café pins to put together, since I have the only complete set known to exist! In the “Treasures of the Hard Rock Café” book, those are my horizontal Les Paul’s on “The complete Horizontals” fold out page, please keep in mind this page does not show back variations, just fronts.
Eyeball Back Pins:
I have always thought the eyeball back pattern was by far the best looking pattern to ever grace the back of Hard Rock Café pins. It was made for only a short time from around late 1989 to late 1990. This design was made by Gift Creations, which first used the mesh back starting around 1985, then went to the eyeball back, and later the grid back until about 1997. There was probably a short period when all three back variations were made, as the 1990 North Shore pin (sold at the Honolulu HRC) was made with all 3 back patterns. Who knows how many different pins have this back pattern? My eyeball back collection has 46 guitars, 8 logos, 1 North Shore pin, and 7 drums, which is a total of 62 different eyeball back pins.
North Shore Pins:
Love the North Shore! My first trip to Honolulu in 1989 my friend and I bought quite a few of these pins, and really enjoyed visiting the North Shore itself. I have all the known variations including the rare 1987 and 1989 clasp backs, and some prototypes as well, including the one and only Pink 87 Northshore prototype and the produced green color 87 Northshore prototype (which hung in one of the cases of the Hard Rock Hotel in Las Vegas for many years!). Both of these are approximately 20% smaller in size than the production pin.
Hard Rock America No Name City Guitar Pin Prototypes:
These are what I consider the best part of my collection. It’s not about quantity, it’s about quality and this is as good as it gets in this hobby! Included is a Van Halen no name with no black stripe, 3 Honolulu ukulele’s with Honolulu on the body of the guitar and not the neck, a San Diego Chuck Berry no name about 25% smaller than the full size pin that was actually made, a Sydney no name with a translucent blue front (and smaller logo) instead of the metallic blue which was made and sold, a Houston no name in opaque red as opposed to the metallic red which was made and sold and a Houston no name in brown which was never put into production, a Chicago double neck no name in red and one in black as opposed to the white one which was actually made. Finally, there is my San Francisco flying V prototypes which are my favorite pins in my collection and include what in my opinion is the Holy Grail of Hard Rock pin collecting, the original San Francisco Peace Guitars. I have all 4 colors that were made, which is the only complete set. This is probably the ultimate set of prototypes in the hobby as these were made in 1988 and have had so much written and said about them. My collection includes the first pin ever to receive an offer of $1000 which is the Peach Colored Peace Guitar. By the way it is the same one in this website photo, SUCH HISTORY!! For comparison purposes I have included one of the reproduction Peace Guitars made years later so you can see the differences. Some of these prototypes are the only ones known to exist.
I have also included some other pins, and some none pin items which I think are pretty cool, including Peter Morton’s laminate he wore on opening night at the original San Francisco Hard Rock Café in 1984 and was featured on page 27 of the “Treasures of the Hard Rock Café” book, which is sold at most Hard Rock Café’s today.
Enjoy these great pins and feel free to email me with any questions!