StockPins Blog

After watching the debates last night I wanted to make a public offer to the folks at Barack Obama’s campaign.  I felt bad that Senator Obama was (unfairly in my opinion) berated for not wearing an American Flag Lapel Pin.   So, Senator OBama - if you’ll give us a call or send us a note - we’ll be happy to send you enough flag pins to last the rest of the campaign. 

Just trying to do my part to advance democracy around the world….

~Pinonda

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Ahoy - all ye landlubbers and seamen alike - whether ye serve before the mast or in the afterguard - Today be International Talk Like  A Pirate Day!!  Grab some grog and our skull and crossbones pins and party like yer headed to Davey Jones’ Locker! 

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This week we’ve introduced a new category of pins - Emoticon Pins.    You know - those little smiley’s you see everywhere in emails, on message boards etc.  People have become so accustomed to showing their feeling with emoticons online that we thought it would be cool use them to show your emoticons in the real world.  So we’ve introduced our first set of 8 emoticon pins.  The set includes Roll Eyes (Sarcastic), Mad, Smilie, Cool, Frown, Wink, Big Grin, and EEK and comes in a gift box.  

Tell us which other emoticons you’d like to see in the next set - just leave your suggestion in the comments here. 

Thanks

~Pinonda

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Thanks for sharing John - what a great story.   

  I would be more than happy to share my story about the pins I’ve been ordering from you for the last three years.

     In 2004 I purchase my first boat from Steve, a friend of mine.  I’ve always wanted a boat to travel and visit the various marinas and summer hot spots all along the south and north shores of Long Island.  I think my love to travel by water to distant places never left me when I left the Navy.  Seems that thrill never left my cousin and brother in-law either.  We’ve even take my little boat across Long Island Sound and docked over night in New London Connecticut. All of our adventures were memorable and deserving of recognition.  This is where Stock Pins has come through for me every time.

   In 2005 we had our first Pin Ceremony.  I presented double and single dolphin pins as Officer pins to my cousin, brother in-law and other crew members. I also awarded everyone, who was on board, with a specific pin for each port they visited with us.  2005 was also the year when my cousin Richie, my brother in-law Gene and I crossed the LI Sound to Connecticut.  Our wives said we were jackasses for attempting this and so at our second annual Pin Ceremony we were awarded Stock Pin’s Golden Donkey pin. 

 

     Tonight we will be hold our 3rd annual Pin Ceremony and I will be honoring my crew and their wives and friends with various pins for they accomplishments and contributions to making our boating experiences memorable.  I can’t think of a better way to commence a boating season than having a Pin Ceremony and I can’t think of a better solution for my pin needs than Stock Pin.  There isn’t a trip we take where I don’t hear someone say ”Do I get a pin for this”?  Your product is more than a pin, it’s conversation piece and behind every pin there’s a story,,,, a Sea Story 

Thank you,

John C. Blevins

Captain SS Therapy

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As many of our readers know we have live chat to help customers as they browse our store.  One of the neat features of this software is you can see how many customers are browsing at any time and where they came from.   The other day all at once, everything went bonkers.  Thousands of folks stated visiting the store and they were all looking at angel pins.  Turns out ESPN.com had just posted a story  about Nomar Garciaparra wearing one of our pins!

An astute fan had noticed and pointed out to Paul Lukas (Uni Watch and ESPN Columnist) that Nomar has the habit of wearing a “Fairy on his left armband.”   ESPN photo dept went to work and turned up some great shots of Nomar wearing our Guardian Angel (style E08) lapel pin. 

Aparently Nomar’s people have decided to not comment on the pin.  We take the privacy of our customers very seriously and will neither confirm or deny the purchase.    We should note however, that Nomar is not the first celebrity to have been spotted wearing our pins.  Last November Isiah Thomas was spotted wearing our puzzle pin and, truth be told, Hollywood wardrobe departments are frequent customers. 

I hope the pin brings you good luck Nomar and thanks for all the visitors!

~Pinonda

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 It’s almost Graduation time and the class of ‘07 will be looking pretty sharp at commencement.  We’re getting calls every day from folks needing pins for graduation ceremonies.  So just in case you need a little inspiration - Here’s a good example from a customer: 

We are a Practical Nursing Program in a high school in partnership with a community college. There is no set pin style for the program yet, since it is only 4 year in the making. So we give our students a Caduceus as a pin for their uniform and graduation gowns.

So in this case they’ve used the Caduceus pin to identify the group of grads who’ve completed this nursing program.  The other common way we see people using pins - is to give them to friends / classmates as a rememberence.  While alot of you will be moving out of State, changing schools, making new friends, experiencing life’s fabulous journeys, pins are a great way to stay connected.  Every time someone wears a pin you gave them, they’ll remember you.    So…

Be your name Buxbaum or Bixby or Bray
Or Mordecai Ali Van Allen O’Shea
You’re off to great places
Today is your day. 
Your lapel pin is waiting
So get yours today!

~sorry - couldn’t help myself - big fan of Dr Suess.

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We have been informed by the administration at VT - that the official policy is that they want absolutely no memorial items produced and are using all possible means to stop merchants from offering such items. 

We respect the difficult position that the VT administration is in.   On the one hand the community is looking for ways to express their grief while on the other the administration needs to protect the privacy and dignity of the families. 

We originally designed our pin in response to dozens of requests from members of the VT community.  We regret any inconvenience that this causes to our customers.  Many of you were planning to use the pin in your fundraising efforts to support the victims and their families.  As a substitute we will offer our black ribbon pin at the same special price.   We also are encouraging all our customers to donate directly to The Hokie Sprit Memorial Fund

We ask for your understanding - there are a lot of people trying to do the right thing here and we all just need to find our way through this. 

~Pinonda

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This has been an incredibly tough week for everyone.  The tragedy Monday really hit home with a lot of people.  Our hearts go out to all the victims and their families, we can’t begin to imagine the pain that they must feel. 

Since monday we have received dozens of requests for a VT Memorial pin.  We always struggle with such requests - not wanting to offend anyone but at the same time wanting to respond to our customers.  The below exchange between our product manager Steve and a customer pretty much sums up our internal struggle: 

Dear StockPins.  After every national tradegy we’ve had (including 9/11 and Katrina), I have come to your website to see what awareness/support pins you had and have always bought plenty.  After the shooting at Virginia Tech, I came here thinking you might have a support/fundraiser pin for Tech as you did for Katrina and have not seen anything yet.  I was wondering if you were planning to create such a pin or if you might consider it?

Please let me know if you can.

Thank you.

Rosaline

———————————

Hi Roasaline - thanks for writing.  We always struggle with this.  Like
everyone we’re deeply affected by tragedies like this and don’t want to
appear to be profiteering.  At the same time, we do have many customers
who, like you want to be able to show their support for the victims.
After much consideration and numerous requests like yours - we have
decided to offer a special pin.

 It will be available online shortly and will be shipping in late next
week.

Thanks for writing

Steve
——————————-

Steve:

Thank you for the quick response.  Especially if it has an element of
fundraising, which I believe you usually do in cases such as this, I
think it is seen as a completely positive thing and not as a way to
“cash in” on a tragedy - so, in my opinion, I feel you have made the
correct choice.

I will check later this afternoon to see if its up yet and place my
order.

Thank you again.

Rosaline

————————–
Hi Rosaline - thanks - It’s a hard choice.

In the case of the Katrina and 911 tragedies we collected funds and then
sent it to the red cross.  In this case I really wouldn’t know where to
send the funds.  Plus lots of people like to use the pin for their own
fundraising or just to hand out to people in the community.  So in those
cases we need to be able to sell them as inexpensively as possible.   I
think what we’ll do is offer the pins as inexpensively as we can so
people can give them away or use them to raise money on their own.

——————–

Good plan - thanks again!

Rosaline

In the end, as you can see we did decide to a Virginia Tech Black Ribbon Pin.  We’re offering it at our lowest possible price for any quantity - because we want as many people to be able to show their support and hopefully raise lots of money.  Please share your stories with us. 

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We had a heartwarming call today from a customer that I just have to share. A woman called today looking for 1 helicopter lapel pin and she wanted it sent Overnight. We got to talking and her story really made my day.

She is a close family friend of a little girl who, for reasons that we didn’t discuss, needed to be evacuated to a hospital by the quickest possible means. In the end she was picked up by helicopter and flown to the hospital where her doctor was able to save her life. The little girl wanted to thank her doctor for the extraordinary efforts by giving him (or her - I’m not sure) a Helicopter pin.

What can you say after a call like that…. I was so thrilled that the story had such a happy ending.

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Hi folks, been a while since I have “blogged”. I have been so busy. Keep the orders coming! Today’s topic–Spring! Oh what better time to “sport” your favorite pin and make a big fashion statement. With so many outdoor sports getting into full swing, we have a large assortment of pins to keep those conversations going. Not to mention the friends you could make!  So whether it’s fishing, boating or another kind of sport, search for the pin you can say “wow, how cool” too! Speaking of sports..golf is very near (if not already)…have you seen our Golf Hat / Pocket Clips? Our Divot Tools? Already have a divot tool but need replacement ball markers?–Got ‘EM!  Check out our personalized golf items!

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