Project record
The design came from a pin someone found in a drawer at the rink
A Hanover, MA club team went from "not sure" to 300 approved 3-inch die struck pins in four days — using a decade-old pin as the reference.
Hanover · MA · South Shore · club
- Quantity
- 300 pins
- Size
- 3.0"
- Process
- die struck
- Finish
- soft enamel
- Proof rounds
- 3
- Inquiry to ship
- 14 days
Gallery
Image frames are in place with their final filenames and alt text. The binaries are held pending rights clearance and a minors review; dropping them in is a data change.
The brief
“I did my Local Hockey Town Team pins a few years ago and they came out great. Now I would like to do my Club Team as we have a tournament coming up. I have attached the Logo so any ideas/help would be greatly appreciated (design/size/style).”
How the design got made
- Beat 1Selected 'Not Sure' for pin style and asked for guidance outright
- Beat 2Three concepts back within one day
- Beat 3 · pivotCustomer found a legacy pin at the rink and sent it as direction: take off the net
- Beat 4Rep gave unprompted size guidance — larger pins trade better
- Beat 5Both price breaks quoted in the open; customer landed the quantity himself
- Beat 6 · pivotOne last ask: remove the season date so the design doesn't expire
- Beat 7Paid two minutes after the invoice arrived
The full account
Starting from "not sure"
The quote form came in on a Friday morning in October. Under pin style, the customer had selected Not Sure, and in the message he said so plainly:
"I did my Local Hockey Town Team pins a few years ago and they came out great. Now I would like to do my Club Team as we have a tournament coming up. I have attached the Logo so any ideas/help would be greatly appreciated (design/size/style)."
He'd bought pins once before for his town team and was back for his son's club team. He had a logo and no opinion about anything else.
Three concepts, then a better idea
Three directions came back from the artist inside a day. The response was not a critique. It was a photograph:
"Thanks for sending…I have attached an old pin we found in the office at the rink. I would say take off the net in the background and I assume that will work. It looks clean/sharp and perfect for what we need…"
Somebody had gone and dug a pin out of a drawer at the rink. Years old, nobody's idea of a design brief, and far more useful than one — it settled the shape, the weight and the level of detail in a single attachment. Take off the net, and it was done.
Size and quantity, quoted in the open
The customer asked what size to order and floated somewhere between 300 and 400 pins. The guidance was that hockey teams trade the larger sizes, anywhere from two inches up to six, and both price breaks were put in front of him rather than one recommended number.
He went away, thought about it, and came back at three inches and three hundred — the number he'd started with. That happens a lot. People don't need to be steered; they need both numbers.
One last change
The near-final proof carried the season date at the bottom. He asked for it to come off.
That's a small edit with a long tail. A dated pin belongs to one season. An undated one can be reordered off the same die next year without paying to redraw the artwork.
Approved that afternoon. Paid two minutes after the invoice arrived.
The timeline
Inquiry on 17 October. Artwork approved on 21 October. Shipped on 31 October, against a deadline of 19 December — seven weeks of slack, which meant no rush fee and the choice of the cheaper freight route.
Specification
| Team | Bay State Breakers |
|---|---|
| Sport | Hockey |
| Level | club |
| Quantity | 300 |
| Size | 3.0" |
| Process | die struck |
| Fill | soft enamel |
| Colours | black, white, green |
| Banner included | No |
| Event confirmed | Not confirmed |
| City | Hanover |
| State | MA |
| County | Plymouth County |
| Region | South Shore |
| Inquiry | 2025-10-17 |
| Artwork approved | 2025-10-21 |
| Shipped | 2025-10-31 |
| Deadline | 2025-12-19 |
| Beat deadline by | 49 days |
| Proof rounds | 3 |
The banner threshold
This order sat under the threshold, so no banner was included. The line falls at 1,000 pins at 2.0 inches or larger: at that point the size step costs $0.20 more per pin — $1.07 to $1.27 — and brings a free 3ft × 6ft banner plus 100 bonus gold-metal or blackout pins with it.
Worth checking before you commit to a quantity: the bigger pin is frequently the cheaper total order.
What the customer said
“It looks clean/sharp and perfect for what we need…”
Customer, Bay State Breakers · 2025-10-20 · on the first proof, NOT the delivered pins
Questions this order answers
The design is stamped into metal with a custom die, leaving raised metal lines and recessed areas. Those recesses are then filled with colour for soft enamel, or left as polished and textured metal for an all-metal pin.
The die is made once per design, which is why there's a one-time mould charge and why a reorder of the same artwork is cheaper than the first run.
Sourced — Production specs across all orders
Soft enamel leaves the colour slightly recessed below the metal lines, so you can feel the design. It's the standard for trading pins and it's what nearly every order here uses.
Hard enamel is polished flat and level with the metal for a smoother, dressier finish. It costs more and loses the tactile quality that makes trading pins feel like trading pins.
Partly sourced — Soft enamel confirmed across orders. Hard enamel pricing NEEDS TPC CONFIRMATION.
Two inches or larger is the working floor for tournament trading — smaller pins get passed over. Sizes run from 2 inches up to 6.
One little league's four orders across three years show the migration in practice: they started at 1.25 inches and moved to 2.0. Larger sizes also unlock the banner threshold, which is why the bigger pin often costs less in total.
Sourced — Sizing guidance across multiple orders; Northern Virginia little league, 2022–2026
Production runs 12–14 business days after artwork approval. Design adds anywhere from a few days to a couple of weeks depending on how many rounds it takes — one order went from first contact to approved art in five days across three rounds.
Shipping is the variable that costs money. Six weeks ahead of your date carries no delivery or rush charge. Four weeks adds a $40 delivery charge. Three weeks adds $40 plus a $75 rush fee.
Sourced — Standard quote language, 2025–26 season
The pins are manufactured in China and are subject to US import tariffs. This is disclosed on every quote rather than surfacing at invoice.
Shipping method changes the exposure: the fastest air options are tariff-subject, while a roughly two-week freight-forwarding route avoids the tariff entirely. On a deadline with room in it, the slower route is usually the cheaper one.
Sourced — Shipping options quoted, October 2025