Pin:Buck Jones Phantom Rider Club

Spin-off merchandise from characters and subjects in popular culture are often just as fascinating as the characters, movies, radio programs, television events, or commercial products which inspire them. Apart from political pins, so-called "pinback" buttons or pins which display these characters and subjects are as old as the metal and celluloid buttons themselves. Beginning in 1893, people wore early plastic Heinz pickles to demonstrate their loyalty to that particular brand (as if home-made pickles weren't good enough!) and similar pins commemorate (and advertise) nearly every aspect of popular culture since. Comic strip and comic book super heroes are no exception; pinback pins adorned with hero imagery began to surge with these comics in the 1940s, and have not stopped.

In 1936, a group of old west gunfighters made the leap from the pages of a comic book to the big screen in the Universal serial film "The Phantom Rider" with actor Buck Jones starring as Buck Grant. As part of the western film genre, the original film has inspired numerous remakes in the years since.