Project record
A hard January deadline, met by taking the slow boat on purpose
A South Jersey 12AA team's rush order routed by freight forward — the slower shipping option, chosen specifically to avoid the tariff.
Pennsville · NJ · South Jersey
- Quantity
- 375 pins
- Size
- 1.75"
- Process
- iron die struck
- Finish
- soft enamel
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
A South Jersey 12AA team on a hard January deadline — routed by freight forward specifically to avoid the tariff.
How the design got made
- Beat 1375 pins at 1.75 inches, dyed black metal with one glitter colour
- Beat 2Marked URGENT RUSH with a fixed in-hands date
- Beat 3Shipped by freight forward — the slower route that avoids the tariff entirely
- Beat 4Paid by the club's hockey director rather than the team manager who placed it
- Beat 5Below the 2-inch trading floor and below the banner threshold
The full account
The decision most orders don't get to make
The pins are manufactured in China and are subject to US import tariffs. That is disclosed on every quote. What varies is the route home, and the route changes the bill:
- Air, 1–2 days — fastest, tariff applies, plus an express surcharge
- Air, 3–4 days — quicker than freight, tariff applies
- Freight forward, ~2 weeks — slowest, no tariff
This order took the freight forward route. It was marked urgent, it had a fixed in-hands date in early January, and it still went the slow way — because the calendar had just enough room to absorb two weeks of ocean freight, and the tariff saving was worth more than the speed.
That is the whole trade. Time is the currency you spend to avoid the tariff. If you order early enough, you have some to spend.
The pin
375 pins at 1.75 inches. Iron die struck, soft enamel, dyed black metal plating, two butterfly clutches, individually wrapped. Three PMS colours and one glitter.
At 1.75 inches this sits just under two inches, which is the size where tournament trading really starts, and under the threshold where the free banner comes with the order. For a team buying primarily for its own players rather than for heavy trading, that's a reasonable place to land — but it's worth knowing what the extra quarter-inch unlocks.
Who actually pays
The person who placed this order was not the person who paid for it. The team manager ran the design and the club's hockey director settled the invoice.
That's common in club and association hockey and it's worth flagging early, because production doesn't start until payment clears. If the invoice has to travel to someone else, tell us on day one and it goes to them directly rather than bouncing.
Specification
| Team | Campus Wild 12AA |
|---|---|
| Sport | Hockey |
| Quantity | 375 |
| Size | 1.75" |
| Process | iron die struck |
| Fill | soft enamel |
| Upgrades | 1 glitter colour (PMS TS105) |
| Banner included | No |
| City | Pennsville |
| State | NJ |
| County | Salem County |
| Region | South Jersey |
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
No publishable customer sentence exists in this order thread, so none is shown. Everything below the header on this page is drawn from the order record itself: sizes, quantities, proof rounds and dates. Nothing here is a testimonial, and we do not write one.
Questions this order answers
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
Tell us the in-hands date first, before anything else. Rush orders are possible and we've protected tight dates by escalating directly with the factory mid-production.
It costs more, and the fastest shipping is also the tariff-exposed shipping. Three weeks out means a $40 delivery charge plus a $75 rush fee.
Sourced — Brainerd AHA rush, November–December 2025
Glitter is mixed into the enamel of a chosen colour rather than applied on top, so it won't rub off. It's specified per colour — one glitter colour, or several.
It's commonly used on a single accent area: the shape of a state, a star, a puck. A 1,500-pin association order ran one glitter colour across the whole run; another design used gold glitter only on the state-shaped element.
Sourced — Multiple 2025–26 orders
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
Yes — colours are specified as PMS numbers on the production order, not described in words. One association order ran ten separate PMS colours plus a glitter.
Send your PMS values if you have them. If you don't, send a uniform photo and we'll pull the colours from it — that request is part of our standard intake for a reason.
Sourced — Brainerd AHA 2025 production spec