The Heinz pickle pin is an advertising item from the H. J. Heinz Company, being a small green pin made in the shape of a pickle. Being continuously offered for more than a century, and with more than 100 million pins produced over the years, it is both one of the longest-running and most successful promotions in history. Description The Heinz pickle pin is very small, about inches long , dark green, and fully "three-dimensional". The word HEINZ appears across the pickle in raised lettering. Because its "retro" design and long tradition are part of the appeal of the pickle pin, the design has changed relatively little in over a century of production. The few changes made have been relatively minor, with slight changes. The original pins were made from gutta-percha, a resin material which was a predecessor to modern plastics, and widely used in the 1800s for dental fillings, jewelry, and insulation for wiring. More recent pins use modern plastic. The pinback has changed from a simple wire which clasps around itself to a modern safety-pin back. The earliest pins had a wire pendant-like hook, allowing them to be hung from a string. Finally, the color has varied somewhat, from a realistic light green matte to the darker and shinier cucumber green used today. Origins The pickle pin was envisioned by Heinz company founder H. J. Heinz, and predates even the "57 varieties" slogan for which Heinz is famous. The first Heinz pickle pins were given away at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, also known as the World's Columbian Exposition, where a simple and inexpensive gift was thought to be necessary to draw visitors toward Heinz's relatively out-of-the-way booth in the second floor upper gallery of the Agricultural Building. Heinz believed that the public could help advertise the Heinz brand, writing in July 1892, "We keep our shingle out and then let the public blow our horn, and that counts." Promotions initially included pickle cards, pickle spoons, calendars, miniature watch chain charms in the shape of a pickle and souvenir books. The pickle charms were later adapted into pins. At the time, this represented a new and different marketing concept. Heinz had some local boys scatter thousands of small white tokens around the fairground, with text offering the "finder" a free souvenir if they came to the Heinz booth. Their reward for stopping by was the opportunity to sample