I've only recently started dipping my toes into the secondhand pin market and the pin creator drama. I've noticed some creators say something along the lines of "reselling without my permission is forbidden!!" In such a limited edition market with vast reselling potential as collectors trade their favorites, why is this? Is it an earnest attempt to stop scalpers and/or are scalpers a major issue with fanmade items by large creators? Or is it a vanity issue about not cheapening their art?

I don't know enough to make an assumption, and I'm not trying to pass judgement or hate on creators. The bio I cropped for this post is from a creator that I feel makes great work - I bought something from this morning.

💕 Some of them are my own designs，hahha

[ Removed by Reddit on account of violating the content policy. ]

It's been a while since I bought pins that weren't from an artist I already knew well, and the sheer number of shops selling hundreds of stolen designs has increased SO MUCH more than I realized. Most of the time I can find the original creator of a pin after some searching, but I'm running into more and more where I can't find one.

Has it gotten to a point where some pins don't really have a 'creator' per se? Or have I gotten much worse at searching them out? At what point are you comfortable buying a pin like that, or are you ever? I don't like the idea of buying from someone selling a lot of clearly stolen designs, but am on the fence about sellers that have mostly this kind of pin.

(Also holy shit it's depressing to see so many stolen, bad copies of pins I know are fake because I have the real one! I'm late to the party here but WTF this is ridiculous.)

Hello! For those who make and sell pins, what do you prefer to use to store them in? And do you store them loose or already packaged with the backing cards and plastic sleeves over them?

I just kickstarted my first designs and am now trying to get all the supplies I need while the manu gets to work! Thanks in advance!

Got a few pins from Etsy for my anime kiddo for the holidays. Found these for myself along the way, ha ha!

Not sure how to link directly, but here's the Etsy shops-

Bike- Peabe

Jacket- CatBiteCollections

Jujutsu Kaisen Choso and Toji and Frieren and Fern

Lighting these things well for photos is hard. >_>

Two praying mantises from two different makers. This pleases me greatly.

Color fidget pin by The Gray Muse. They have other versions of it too.

Polyphemus moth because it’s my favourite, glittery Mothman because he’s adorable, Greenland shark is part of Bizarre Beasts pin club (Hank Green on YouTube), mermaid reminding me of deep truths.

Left Hand of Darkness is a book that changed my life by showing me a mirror. Book “wyrm” is an old pin that is missing some enamel, which I have never seen happen before.

The two flower pins are snapdragon on the right because they remind me of my mom, and Indian paintbrush on the left just because I really like it.

Alaskan stuff is from Alaska. The glacier is cool because for much of my life I thought there were no glaciers anymore, because “the ice age ended when the glaciers melted” was something I knew about ancient history but nobody ever mentions that not ALL of the glaciers melted and visiting one in person was like that moment in Jurassic Park when they see dinosaurs for the first time.

The little rocket ship and “micro chipped” charms were purchased online but I didn’t realize the site selling them intended for them to be attached to dog/cat collars? I just thought “micro chipped” was a really funny kinda dystopian themed one? >____>;;

Aaaand that’s all.

I've been working with my Chinese manufacturer for almost a year now, and quality has been inconsistent. I produce hard enamel products, so a b-grade rate of up to 20% is acceptable in terms of industry standards (based on my research.) Some runs there will be almost no b-grades, and in my most recent one, I have some designs with a 36% b-grade rate and many other errors where it feels like they just moved fast and were sloppy. I've also worked with my manufacturer to solve some construction problems, which has been a win.

Given the quality inconsistency but progress on solving construction problems, how do you know when it is the right time to pursue a new manufacturer? I'm new to this and don't know what's expected with working with China. Should I just expect quality to be up and down?

Well, here it is—my old collection of pins, displayed on a board at the request of some folks from the subreddit.

I haven’t dared to clean them yet, for fear of damaging them further. As I mentioned in a previous post, I hadn’t seen or thought about these pins for over 20 years; because they weren’t taken care of during that time, some have rusted, and others have lost some of their enamel color. I hope you enjoy it.

After sticking to pins $30-$40 and under for most of my time collecting, I finally dove headfirst into giant, expensive pins not too long ago. These are some of my biggest and favorite collection pieces, items I can point to and feel proud I own, and onces I can use as a centerpiece to build a larger pin board around. Does anyone have favorite creators that specialize in massive masterpieces like these? I still plan on buying mostly smaller pins, but I want to keep my eyes on the white whales, the possible highlights of my collection, etc. Are there a name for giant pins? Multilayered items? The big specialty LE items?

Artists are as shown:

Sailor Moon Henshin - Geo's Treasures

Yuri on Ice - Pastel Shooting Star (I think. I bought this secondhand and I'm not home while typing this to verify what it says on the back)

Dungeon Meshi - Lukellios

Alien Stage IvanTill - Spit Makes

Alien Stage MiziSua - Passamani Art

Reposting but tl;dr, possible charity pin, may be from Scotland but I have no idea.

Been collecting for over 12 years and here’s my collection of raunchy pins from many moons ago

I was wondering if there may be a subreddit for my issue, and I may have found it. If not please let me know.
I came across this pin in my collection and I can’t remember where it came from. It may have come from my parents but I believe it’s dated around the early 2000s.
It depicts a child’s drawing of what I presume is a girl, on the back it says “ROCKET BADGE COMPANY 0171 533 6767”
It’s either from a charity or from a school of my brothers.
I googled the company name and came across this:

https://rocketbadge.co.uk

It may not be the same company, but I have emailed them in case. Also I’m from the UK if it helps.
Here are pictures of the pin, as well as some of my pin collection.

I’m here as I couldn’t find out from a google search, and it bugged me.

TL;DR help me identify this pin, maybe from the early 2000.

Hi everyone,

Some of you might remember our previous project, TOMORROW MYTH, where we designed endangered animal enamel pins to bring awareness to wildlife conservation.

While creating pins was an amazing journey, we kept asking ourselves: What else can we do with these characters? How can we give them a more immersive, interactive life beyond just being worn on a jacket or bag?

That's how the idea for Jungle King was born.

We decided to push it further and transform our detailed animal designs into heavy, tactile metal game pieces. We took a childhood classic—traditional Asian animal chess (斗獸棋)—and completely redesigned it for the modern tabletop.

Along with the upgraded metal craftsmanship, we also introduced Nature Strategy Cards to add fresh tactical depth, while keeping the core spirit of the classic game alive. Plus, part of our profits will still support the Taiwan Black Bear Conservation Association to honor our wildlife roots.

This has been a massive passion project for us, and I'm really excited to finally see these characters come to life on a board. If anyone is interested or wants to know more about how we made the transition from pins to a board game, feel free to drop a comment or ask me for details!

Thanks for reading and following along with our journey!