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People come to the touring gaming convention PAX out of their love for gaming - be it board games, video games, and other games. But for some, they've made collecting pins at PAX a game in itself. It's all about the chase, the achievement once you have a new one you've been after, and the community that has developed to trade, converse, and compete (playfully!) towards collecting them all. Friday, while en route to the PAX East 2025 Expo Hall, I met arguably the most popular collector in the PAX pin trading community - and recognized him from across the crowded entrance. Not for what he looked like, but for what he wore.

And I'm not talking about cosplay.

You can pick Eric Temple out from the crowd for his black trench coat adorned with over 1600 metal pins; pins collected over the past 13 years, and affixed one-by-one to his government issue US Navy trench coat and worn with pride. Eric is part of the Pinny Arcade community - a play on the name of the webcomic Penny Arcade, from which the PAX shows grew out of. In many ways, this strapping man with a high and tight haircut has risen to become the pinnacle of PAX pin trading. Not just for his collection, but for how he has chosen to collect and display it as a wearable gallery - a gallery that has grown to weigh 40 pounds.

Pinpointing the origin of the PAX Pin Man

Eric Temple tells me that he wasn't a pin collector prior to engaging in this hobby of collecting PAX pins, but for me, I disagree. Not that I believe he is wrong, but I see it in the various medals he's collected over his 18-year career in the US Navy - including a recent Navy and Marine Corps (NAM) Achievement Medal. Obviously those medals and the service that earned them are very different than PAX pins, in both cases they are public symbols of a quest achieved.

US Navy serviceman Eric Temple is stationed in San Diego, and serves aboard the US Navy's USS Sante Fe submarine as a "nuclear mechanic," specializing in engineering.

"I handle all the radioactive material the submarine generates, and I do a lot of the water chemistry for the primary and secondary reactors," Temple tells Popverse. "I'm also a senior engineering supervisor, so I run the engine."

Although he's lived in San Diego for the past three years, he's yet to prioritize attending that area's Comic-Con International: San Diego, and instead has found a home at PAX - having been attending since Boston's PAX East in 2010.

"I was stationed in Connecticut and I drove up for it, and this was before pins were even a thing at PAX," says Temple. "I grew up loving video games, and before this the only major video game convention was E3 - and you had to be 'in' the industry to get into it. PAX was (and is) a con for gamers by gamers, and I loved it. I walked around, demo'd a bunch of video games, had a great time with my friends, and I just kept coming back."

Temple has attended PAX East, PAX West, PAX Unplugged, as well as PAX Aus in Melbourne over the years - and considers himself "lucky" to have begun the hobby back in 2012 when PAX pins became a thing. 

"I believe there were only five or six pins the first time they did it, at PAX East 2012," says Temple. "I was here in 2013 when they did the first merch pins, and I bought those, thinking 'Oh cool, I can rep Penny Arcade and PAX throughout the year, and I'll wear them on my jacket.'"

Penny Arcade and ReedPop "doubled down" on PAX pins quickly according to Temple, which him saying there were 65 new pins at by PAX East 2014. 

"It's a lot of fun for people to do, and it took off. Some you could get for demoing a game. Some you could get if you go to a panel. Others you would buy, and then there was also giveaways," he says. "It was the Wild West, and people were running around trying to collect them all and that's when I started. I was able to get most of them, and it's been like Pokémon - you just gotta catch them all."

Temple points to the website PinnyPals.com as the central place that PAX pin collectors like him use to track their pin collections, as well as learn about all the pins and their varied availability. 

The pinnacle of PAX pin collecting

While Eric Temple has owned his iconic black trench coat since he was issued it in 2007 upon joining the US Navy, it didn't become the pin gallery that it is now until years later. Just like a quest to obtain certain pins is a years-long pursuit with some surprising turns, how he displayed his pins had a few turns.

"I believe I was the first person to actively collect the PAX pins. In the first three years there were only about 300 pins, and I displayed my collection on one of the PAX scarves you can buy here at the merch booth," says Temple. "I just hung it around my neck, and even that was painful. Once I ran out of space, I moved them to a normal jean jacket where I got up to 850 pins. But I needed more space."

When you have 850 pins and want to display it on your person, thinking of a piece of clothing with enough real estate - and sturdiness - to do it can be cofounding. But that's when Temple thought back to his study US Navy trench coat, built to withstand tough situations and time.

"It's got this like nice liner that protects me from all these pin backs and so I took the 850 off the jean jacket and put them on the trench coat, and I've just been filling it up ever since." says the US Navy serviceman. "It's just a nice tench coat, and they don't even make them or issue them anymore. It's got a lining that helps with the weight of the pins."

Remember, that's 40 pounds of pins by his estimation. As he's accumulated more and more pins since moving to his trench coat, the ever-increasing weight has become an issue - to the point he can only wear it for limited periods.

"I used to be able to wear it for a couple of hours, but now I can only really wear it for like 20 to 30 minutes at a time before I have to take it off."

To help keep the 1600+ pins from falling off, he's replaced the backs on them all with Allen Key locking backs. While they're not 100% secure according to Temple, "the likelihood of that happening before I catch it is small."

Eric Temple and the quest for the penultimate PAX pins

While Temple is the most identifable PAX pin collector here at PAX East 2025 (thanks in larger part to that jacket), he says even he hasn't got them all yet. There are three "out of about 1650" that he's still chasing, and he is narrowing in on one of those this very weekend.

"One of them is the Dessert Bus pin from, I believe, PAX East 2024," says Temple. "That pin is valued about $250 to $400. I have a friend in the pinning community who is supposed to be here, and has one he's willing to trade."

The other two he's after are even rarer. One is an official Final Fantasy pin depicting the diminuitive and adorable Moogle that is hard to find, exacerbated by the fact it was only released at Melbourne's PAX Aus event - meaning it its even more unlikely to make its way across the ocean to the United States.

The last is what is referred to in the Pinny Arcade community as the 'DLC Pin'; a limited edition pin available only as a reward for backing a Kickstarter for Penny Arcade's podcast Downloadable Content back in 2013. Penny Arcade says that 300 were made, and only 183 were issued as a Kickstarter tier reward.

"I didn't even know about it at the time, and only about 100 PAX DLC pins are known to exist," says Temple. "Because a lot of people got them in the mail, and people were like 'Oh this pin is cool' and they put it in a shoebox with the rest of their swag, and they have no idea they're holding onto a pin that someone like me would pay $1000 [for]."

Temple says that the DLC pin has sold recently on eBay for $1250, but he's "convinced" that he could get it for $1000 if he pays in cash.

When confronted with the idea that he may someday get these final three pins and complete his quest, besides new pins, would be over, Temple says it would be monumental - but it wouldn't stop him from coming to PAX or participating in the pin trading community.

"It'd be nice not to have any pins in my backlog that I'm looking for," says Temple. "I am looking forward to finally being a completionist - that's what they call someone who has an entire collection - and I believe this year is the year. But then I'd continue to maintain."

Pinpointing the fascination with PAX pins with Eric Temple

Eric Temple began attending PAX shows in 2012 out of his love for video games, and its a passion that has grown over the years. This weekend he plans to stow away his pin jacket and venture out onto the showfloor to check out demos for Elden Ring: Nightreign and other games, and he is an avid streamer - with the business card to prove it. But pin collecting has become the symbolic and spiritual clasp that has pinned him to the PAX community for over a decade now, and the PAX pin collecting has brought out the implicit part of pop culture conventions to the fore for him: the community.

"I'm very shy typically, and in the older PAX events I would just kind of walk around with my friend and I really wouldn't get to meet anybody or make new friends. But now there's like 30 people here that I know, and we all know each others name, and we trade and we talk," says Temple. "I like talking with them, and trading with them, and PAX has a whole downstairs area for Pinny Trading thats great."

Temple estimates that "80% of my fun" revolves around pin trading, but even if pins weren't a part of PAX he would still be here because "it's that much fun."

Look for Eric Temple next time you're at a PAX event - you can recognize him from this coat of pins. You can also find him streaming games on Twitch (templeOfdoom), Steam (zalbaagofholding), League of Legends (FairyHotDog), and Xbox Live (ShraaPNull).

With over 14 years of Disney pin trading, this collector has made a whole new family.