When the 1984 Olympics came to Los Angeles, everyone expected chaos. The news said the 405 would lock up like a bad knee, downtown would be impassable, and every restaurant, grocery store, and movie theater from Pasadena to Dana Point would have lines out the door.
So what did Angelenos do? They left.
Some packed up the Volvo and headed for Lake Arrowhead. Others rented their homes to foreign journalists or visiting families for what, in 1984 dollars, counted as serious money. Many just wanted to avoid the crush — the fear of a city swallowed by traffic, tourists, and televised spectacle.
Then the Games began… and the streets were empty.
The 405 became a private autobahn — you could glide from the Valley to Newport Beach so fast you might miss your exit entirely. Restaurants that had stocked up for Olympic crowds found themselves half-full, waiting for customers who never came.
The real action wasn’t in the commerce everyone expected — not the hotels, not the restaurants, not the souvenir stands. It was in a trinket trade.
The Olympic pin market.
Corporate sponsors had minted tens of thousands of enamel pins — Coca-Cola, McDonald’s, Levi’s, AT&T, and more — meant as polite tokens of corporate goodwill, the kind of thing exchanged in VIP tents with handshakes and press passes.
In practice? They became currency.
At every venue, a buzzing collectors’ scene took shape. People with special connections — the kind that didn’t involve USC admissions — were holding boxes of pins and selling them for $40 to $100 each, sometimes more if supply ran thin.
The margins were spectacular. The behavior? Questionable.
By the closing ceremony, the tone felt downright cinematic — a blend of hustle, optimism, and a little chaos. The city that had braced for gridlock instead discovered its own Olympic sport: pin commerce.
That was the 1984 Los Angeles Olympics — fewer crowds than predicted, more deals than anyone admitted, and a reminder that the city’s best game has always been timing.
Lesson learned? In Los Angeles, when everyone else folds, sometimes the smartest move is to stay in the game.