Saint Patrick’s Day, an annual feast of Saint Patrick, one of the patron saints of Ireland, is held on March 17 every year. Saint Patrick’s Day celebrations are generally themed around all things Irish–wearing of the color green, eating Irish food, imbibing in Irish drink and attending parades.

The largest St. Patrick’s Day parade is held in New York City and it is watched by over 2 million spectators. The first one was held in Boston in 1761, organized by the Charitable Irish Society. Some cities paint the traffic stripe of their parade routes green. Chicago has dyed its river green since 1961 when sewer workers used green dye to check for sewer discharges, and then got the idea to turn the river green for St. Patrick’s Day.

Green, the color most widely associated with St. Patrick’s Day, may have gained its prominence through the phrase “wearing of the green,” meaning to wear a shamrock on your clothing. St. Patrick used the shamrock, a 3-leafed plant, to explain the Christian concept of the Holy Trinity.

Traditionally, those who are caught not wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day are pinched, although this practice is alien to those who actually come from Ireland. Another way to wear green is to put on a lapel pin. Some of the more popular St. Patrick’s Day pins depict a shamrock, a leprechaun or just cute sayings like “Kiss me, I’m Irish!” and “Everyone is Irish on St. Patrick’s Day!” Fancier ones feature green glitter or blinking lights.

The Monterey Company can create custom-made St. Patrick’s Day lapel pins for 2009! You don’t even need finished artwork—just an idea. Our friendly sales team and designers can create a pin that features your Irish family crest, a photo or family name. There are endless possibilities! Let’s talk about them! Call toll-free 1-800-259-6496.

In the meantime, we’ll leave you with An Old Irish Blessing:

May love and laughter light your days,
and warm your heart and home.
May good and faithful friends be yours,
wherever you may roam.
May peace and plenty bless your world
with joy that long endures.
May all life’s passing seasons
bring the best to you and yours!

Posted: March 17th, 2008 under Articles, Lapel Pins.
Comments: none

Blinking lights, commonly called “blinkies,” have been a popular addition to baseball trading pins for years. They can make a mascot’s eyes look more menacing while calling attention to the pin itself.

To create the blinking effect, a small light bulb (called a light-emitting diode or LED), is placed on the pin and connected to a hidden battery box on the back. When turned on, the LED achieves full brightness in microseconds and begins to blink red or green. Sometimes adjustments may need to be made in the design to allow for enough space to hold a blinkie.

For example, one baseball team wanted two blinkies to accent their mascot’s eyes, a large lizard. To get both of them on the design, space between the lizard’s eyes needed to be widened. However, later on, the team decided to go with just one blinkie, so the artist at The Monterey Company redrew the lizard’s head to show a side view.

“We have blinkies at our office that are three years old–and still work” said Paul Stark, president of The Monterey Company. LED lights are difficult to damage and have a relatively long useful life.

One report estimates regular LEDs can last from 35,000 to 50,000 hours. By comparison, fluorescent bulbs last about 30,000 hours, and regular light bulbs last only 1,000–2,000 hours. When a LED is starting to fail, it will start to dim over time, rather than an abrupt burn-out like most household light bulbs. They do not contain mercury, unlike compact fluorescent lights.

Although LEDs are popular now, they were invented more than 88 years ago. In the mid 1920s, Russian Oleg Vladimirovich Losev created the first LED, but his research, though distributed in scientific journals, was ignored.In 1961, experimenters Bob Biard and Gary Pittman of Texas Instruments, received the patent for LEDs, but Nick Holonyak, Jr. of the General Electric Company, developed the first practical visible-spectrum LED in 1962and is known as the “Father of the Light-Emitting Diode.”

Let LED blinkies light up your trading pin! Call The Monterey Company for a free estimate at 1-800-259-6496 or visit the trading pins gallery.

Posted: March 12th, 2008 under Trading Pins.
Comments: none

My mother was looking in her jewelry box the other day, and came across an old fraternity pin of my father’s. She looked at it closely and you could see in her eyes that she was a million miles away.

“Your father presented this to me at a fraternity pinning ceremony after we had been dating about one year,” she said. “All of his fraternity brothers were dressed up in their blue suits and they sang songs to us. At the end, he pinned it onto my dress. It was one of the happiest moments of my life!”

She explained that a fraternity pinning ceremony was like a pre-engagement. It meant that a couple was serious enough to stand in front of the fraternity and pledge their love. After all of these years, I couldn’t believe that she still kept that pin. I looked at it closely. It had the Greek letters, TKE, which stood for Tau Kappa Epsilon, my dad’s fraternity. He had been TKE president that year. The letters were in raised gold with a brushed metal background. Although it was nearly 30 years old, it showed little signs of age.

 When I returned home that night, I looked at the pins that were in my jewelry box:

• A Brownie pin
• A couple of Girl Scout pins (I had been in for three years)
• An International Girl Scout pin (when we were living at Clark AFB in the Philippine Islands)
• Several pins from Colorado ski resorts (that I visited in high school and college)
• A 5-year service pin from a former insurance company (where I worked)
• An animal rights group pin (that I volunteered for)

Why did I keep those pins? I think it’s because they were a reflection of my life, the groups that I belonged to, what I loved and where I lived and played. One look at each of them sent me back in time, just like my mother.

“It’s not actually the lapel pin itself, but what it represents,” said a top salesperson at The Monterey Company. When she helps create lapel pins for customers, they reflect more than just pieces of metal, but milestones in their lives.

Let The Monterey Company help create your lifetime memories with lapel pins. Call us toll free at 1-800-259-6496.

Posted: March 11th, 2008 under Lapel Pins.
Comments: none

Trading Pins at Cooperstown 2008

Located on the outskirts of the “Home of Baseball” (Cooperstown, NY), the Cooperstown All Star Village is the crown jewel of Youth Tournament Baseball. It welcomes all baseball teams, aged 10 and under, sanctioned, independent, travel and select. Teams compete in weekly tournaments (48 teams per week), and at the end, every team and player is inducted into the Cooperstown Youth Baseball Hall of Fame.

Exchanging trading pins are an integral part of the overall experience. It’s a fun way for players to socialize with other players, coaches and umpires.

Months before they reach Cooperstown, teams contact The Monterey Company to begin creating their trading pins. Generally, it takes three weeks to create and ship, however, teams that don’t have finished artwork may need to start earlier to develop their design.

“The bigger, the flashier and the more attractive the trading pin is, the more popular it is to trade,” said Paul Stark, president, The Monterey Company. “These pins are a great way to acknowledge your team’s accomplishments.”

The best way to make your trading pin stand out is to add accessories, such as danglers, sliders, spinners, led blinkie lights, wiggle head bobbers and glitter:

· A dangler is a secondary pin that hangs off of the main pin. Danglers are essentially a second custom made pin designed to accent the design. One popular dangler is a baseball with the year printed on it.

· Sliders are secondary pins that are attached to a main pin via a slot. It is able slide a short distance along the pin, adding movement to the design. Sliders are great for making a player slide into home base, for instance.

· A spinner is a secondary pin that is attached through a hole in the main pin and capped off, allowing it to spin freely. For instance, it can be used to create movement in the wheels of a car or a hurricane hovering over a team’s home state.

· Blinkies are a small light bulb (LED) that is placed on the pin connected to a hidden battery box attachment on the back. When turned on, the bulb begins to blink and attract attention.

· Bobble heads are the danglers of the future. A bobble-head is a secondary pin that is connected to the main pin using a spring attachment instead of a chain. The spring enables the “bobbling” action of the pin. It can be used in many designs ranging from making a player’s head bobble to having your team’s logo spring from your home state.

· With just the faintest hint of light, glitter adds an extra sparkle to your design. At .15 cents per color per location, it’s an inexpensive way to draw attention to your trading pin.

Posted: March 10th, 2008 under Lapel Pins, Trading Pins.
Comments: none

Weeks ago, Democratic Presidential Candidate Barak Obama made negative news on the Internet when he was seen not wearing an American flag lapel pin. He told the media that wearing or not wearing a lapel pin wasn’t a reflection of his patriotism. Recently, however, a photo of Obama was seen circulating the Internet sporting a new lapel pin with the inscription, “Patriots for Peace.”

A spokesperson for the Obama campaign stated that the senator was greeted in El Paso by a  soldier who was set to deploy to Iraq on his fifth duty tour in six years. The soldier said that he had worn it on his uniform in Iraq since 2004. He asked Obama to wear it as a sign of his support to end the failed occupation of Iraq. Obama said that he would be honored to wear the pin.Obama’s new lapel pin is round with a cropped section of a red-white-and-blue American flag in the center. Over the flag is a white line drawing of a peace sign and around the entire edge in raised metal letters is the inscription: “Patriots for Peace.”

At The Monterey Company, we can easily recreate a similar Obama Patriots for Peace lapel pin for you!

The Monterey Company’s president is enthusiastic about creating pins that reflect American patriotism. For years, his company has created American flag lapel pins, Vote pins, as well as military pins and challenge coins for all branches of the U.S. Military.

“We’ve become experts in promoting patriotism,” said Paul Stark. “Given Obama’s popularity, this could be a popular pin for years to come!”

To order your American patriotic pins, call The Monterey Company today, 1-800-259-6496.

Posted: March 4th, 2008 under Lapel Pins.
Comments: none

At the Monterey Company, all that glitters turns to gold! Glitter is made of tiny little sequins (often the size of a pepper flake) that reflect light. Many of us have known glitter since elementary school with our craft projects or on Christmas decorations. Because of its brilliant effects, glitter is also widely used on baseball trading pins that are traded at Cooperstown, PA every year.

“The bigger, the flashier and the more attractive the trading pin is, the more popular it is to trade,” said Paul Stark, president, The Monterey Company. “At only .15 cents per pin, glitter is an inexpensive way in which teams can draw attention to their trading pins.”

Glitter is often used to set off the team’s name or to highlight its mascot. It comes in a variety of colors, including red, blue, yellow, green, orange, pink, black and white, to name a few. You don’t have to limit your glitter choices to one area. You can put glitter in as many places as you like. It costs .15 per color per area.

For example, if you wanted glitter in the sky and on the mascot on your trading pin, then it would cost .30 per pin.Anyway you look at it, all that glitters is gold. Glitter catches the sun and makes your trading pin shine! And what shines is considered valuable!

The flashier the pin, the more other team members will want to trade for it!

Posted: March 1st, 2008 under Trading Pins.
Comments: none

When you need to order your lapel pins in a hurry, ask about our rush service. The Monterey Company offers photo pins, pewter and die stuck pins as part of our rush pin service. We also offer USA made lapel pins in a rush. Photo pins are a printed pin with an epoxy coating over the design and full color graphics can be reproduced with no metal lines between the colors. Our pewter die struck lapel pins are available with and with out color added and a 5 to 8 day rush is available. Please make sure to let us know if you have a deadline as in some cases our standard production time may work and rush charges may not apply.

Posted: February 23rd, 2008 under Lapel Pins.
Comments: none

Making a recognition pin with stones or engraved years of service can be a bit confusing, as many options are available. The first thing to consider is the cost of the pins. If you are looking for a gold or silver pin with stones a few options should be considered.

1. Would you like a plated pin or solid gold or gold filled pin, sterling silver or silver plated?
2. Real stones or synthetic gemstones?
3. There are two options when adding years to a pin. Engraved years of service is the most economical way to include the years on a pin. Years in raised metal as part of the die is also a great option when come to anniversaries but is a more expensive way of including years on a recognition pin.
4. Years of service pins can include different color stones representing the different years of service.
5. Attachment options include: Deluxe clutch, safety pin, magnet back and tie tack.
6. Quantity per year of service.
7. Packaging options include plastic boxes, velveteen boxes and velveteen bags.

There is no minimum order on service pins and please feel free to ask us on the best way to incorporate your logo or design into a pin that you will be proud of.

Posted: February 21st, 2008 under Lapel Pins.
Comments: none

Adding epoxy to your coin will create a protective coating that will protect the enamel and enhance the details in your coins by acting like a magnifying glass.

Posted: February 20th, 2008 under Corporate Coins, Military Coins, Things to know about ordering pins.
Comments: none

�

Posted: February 20th, 2008 under Lapel Pins, Things to know about ordering pins.
Comments: none