My Quest For A Tie Pin

Back in the old days when dinosaurs roamed the Earth and I was a child, men wore tie pins with their neckties. The purpose of tie pins was both functional and decorative. The pin held your tie in place and kept the back-end from sliding sideways, looking unkempt. Tie pins date back to 1860 and didn't disappear until the 1960's when ties became an unpopular symbol of the Establishment.

For most of my life, men wore so little jewelry that I eagerly adopted whatever was allowed. As a child and teen, I had a large collection of tie pins and tie bars. Sadly they were casually discarded over the decades since then.

Recently I purchased some cool neckties at a neat thrift-shop in Hudson, NY. One tie is very attractive but its back-piece keeps sliding around. It occurred to me to get a pin to secure the tie. And that has been my quest for the past month.

Every thrift- and retail-store I've entered recently has been searched like a gold mine for the treasured nugget. To no avail. Not only don't men wear them any more, stores don't carry them, not even vintage shops. So imagine my elation today when, during a motorcycle ride to Northport, I stumbled on a vintage store with three trays of tie pins. Most were crap but I found a few nice ones. Here they are, photographed on a picnic table in Northport's seaside park.

Do any of these appeal to you?