StockPins Blog

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

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.

We sell tons of Shovel pins. The typical story is that people use them for ground breaking ceremonies and will hand them out to all the folks in attendance. Pretty typical stuff. So when Donna S called up yesterday to order shovel pins - I figured it was another groundbreaking somewhere. Boy was I shocked.

Turns out that Donna is involved with a Bible study group at the Cross Roads Church. They call themselves “The Grave Robbers”

Our Friday night Bible Study Group is called “Grave Robbers.”  We wanted a lapel pin that would represent the name of our group, plus be a fashion statement with our attire.  We were so pleased to find the gold shovel lapel pin on your web site.  Not only was it the perfect item, but it is great quality at a good price.  Attached is a photo of our group wearing the pins.  As an added bonus, I put them into a tiny coffin box to set the theme.  Thank you for your good service and your speedy delivery.  We look forward to doing business with you again. 

Wishing you God’s Blessing,

Donna Sheehy
Crossroads Community Church
Cincinnati, Ohio

 

Sounds like they’re a pretty fun group. Donna says that their meetings have been know to go into the wee hours. I don’t think I could keep up with you guys!! Thanks for sharing Donna!

Recently we asked one of our dearest customers to share a bit about how he uses lapel pins and why he does so.  First a bit of background.  Larry has been a frequent customer for over 3 years and is responsible for designing some of our awareness ribbon pins.  Whenever there was a particular cause for which Larry wanted to raise awareness - and there wasn’t an existing pin - Larry would submit his own design to be used in our library.   He’s a bit like Johnny Appleseed - only with pins.  Handing out pins to people to help raise awareness and to bring a smile to their face. 

We asked Larry to share a bit about his experiences and why he hands out so many pins.  Here is what he had to say. 

There is a saying:  ”Out of sight, out of mind”.    Anyone who has been affected by something, hopes for breakthroughs leading to a cure to eradicate whatever affected them.  But nothing  will materialize until the research has been done, and just like a journey of a thousand miles begins with one step, the sooner you start, the sooner you get there.  Unfortunately, most people don’t get involved until they have personally been affected; it is not like they don’t care, but since they are not personally affected, they are not thinking about it.  It is out of sight, so it is out of their  mind.   The awareness pins help remind others that it is not just something you read about in the Newspapers or see on Television, but real people they run into on a daily basis are affected.  It reminds people that we need to be fighting this because there are real people suffering and it could happen to someone close to them.

The research our grandparents’ generation did is the reason why diseases that use to decimate the countryside, (diseases like Small Pox, and Polio) the kids of today only know  about these things from reading history books.  If we are successful, the diseases we are plagued with today will be something our grandchildren’s generation will only know about from studying history.  If everyone contributes a small amount, it starts to add up over time.  The Awareness pins help remind people that these problems are still out there, we must not forget about these problems so we can remain focused in fighting them.   We must not forget about them until we have solved the problem.

Thank you for sharing Larry!  You can read some of Larry’s experiences with Autism Awareness Pins, Breast Cancer Ribbons, Leukemia Awareness.

Friday afternoon 4:50pm….  The phone rings:

SP:  “Hello, stockpins - how can I help you?”
Aaron:  “I’ve got an impossible request, I need 50 pig lapel pins - tomorrow, in Seattle” 

Well - it turns out that Aaron’s birthday just happened to fall on Sunday - the beginning of the lunar new year - which this year happens to be The Year of the Pig.  He was having a party at a bar and wanted to give pig pins to everyone at the party so they could easily identify who was with his group.    (we got the pins out that night via FedEx - Saturday delivery and fedex confirmed they made it!)

Another great way to use pins - thanks for the idea Aaron and we hope your birthday bash was a success. 

A customer called yesterday and ordered 10 pins each of about 20 different designs.  All sorts of designs, a bunch of different animal pins, some western pins, some biker pins - they didn’t seem to have anything in common so I asked what they were planning to do with all these pins.  Her answer was inspiring:

We have about 150 employees here and we just got new ID Badges.  Many of the employees are new and don’t know eachother.  We thought it would be a good conversation starter to have them each pick a pin to put on their badge that says something about themselves.  Then they may find they have something in common with someone else.    For example, if they see someone with a  horse pin on their badge they’d know maybe that person is interested in horses too - and start a conversation.  

Our customers are so creative!  What a fantastic idea!