HOT BUTTON ISSUES

We’ve grown quite attached to Londoner Alice Ridgway’s pin collection. As the buff behind the deeply cool Instagram account The Rusty Pin, Alice has amassed her impressive stash in the most British-sounding way CREEM can imagine: “Car boot sales,” she says. Car whadda?

“So, on Sunday morning, you get everyone parked up in a muddy field, and they open up the boot of their car, and they have a little table maybe. And you get the weirdest mix of stuff. Like 90 percent of it is just junk, but I’ve picked up a good few bags of badges there.”

Alice’s pinfatuation has also led to buying up private collections from old punks (England has a lot of those), and even confronting strangers. “I’ll usually end up in a pub and there’ll be someone who’s got a leather jacket on with loads of badges and I’ll have to talk to them,” she says. “Or I’ll see someone in the street who’s got a hat with a bunch of badges on it and I’ll end up talking to them. I have to—it’s like my calling to chat to them.” Approaching old people in pubs and trudging through mud doesn’t sound like our cup of English tea, but she assures, “It’s good fun.” Well, stick a pin in us!

SO WHAT IF I WANNA BE A PINHEAD?

A sweet smattering of some of Alice’s favorite pins, and some comments on the prime selections (“Oh, I’ll never sell that one”).

BLONDIE

This is maybe my favorite one. This was made by Better Badges [the first major manufacturer of punk badges, and a fixture of the early punk and post-punk scene in the U.K.]. I think it’s 1977. I like that it’s Debbie and she was so beautiful—to just chop over her eyes is quite good, and classic Debbie.

DONOVAN

I’m always drawn to this badge for some reason. I always see it and think, “God, I should listen to Donovan again.” And then I do and I’m like, “Ugh, not into it.” But maybe that’s the sign of a good badge: It will make you listen to the music even if you’re not a fan.

oz

This is Oz magazine: it was a countercultural magazine in the late ’60s and early 70s, but then it got really controversial. There was this big obscenity trial where they got taken to court and the editors got sent to prison briefly, actually. This was from their “freaks” issue. They had amazing graphics, and it was definitely a product of its time.

DEEP PURPLE

I really like this one because it’s based on a bootleg album. The bootleg badges are sometimes better than the original ones the band did. And they’re generally a bit more pixelated and they’re not lined up properly, you’ll get a bad pressing of the badge. The graphics can be more fun. And it’s just nice when fans do things, isn’t it?

KILBURN AND THE HIGH ROADS

This is Ian Dury’s first band. They made just one album. Kilburn, it’s north London, and it’s a bit rough now, so back in his day it must have been worse. And Kilburn High Road is a road in London. It’s just a very niche badge, I suppose. Also the barbed wire is really cool.

MAN

This badge introduced me to Man, and they’re a really cool Welsh prog-rock band, like a Welsh version of the Grateful Dead. They did loads of crazy tours and albums. I’ve got a lot of these Man badges, loads of different ones with crazy graphics. You can see there’s definitely elements of Wales’flag on there.