History 2

History, Part II

Perhaps I should back up a moment here and note that at this point there really wasn't "The Emblem." Not that that is much of a name either, but if the thing had any name at all at the time I'm now describing it was, "That pin thing that Quag is working on." In fact, the whole endeavor was being referred to simply as The Pin Project, which I had christened it for lack of anything better.

It would be misleading to say that the entire group discussing the developing symbol signed off on my revised design. It would be more accurate to say that the response was, "Yeah, okay, great, when can you get the pins made? We're waiting!" So once I knew that nobody had found any problems I'd overlooked, I went seeking a manufacturer. Actually, there was a bit of overlap, but now all the emphasis was on deciding who would make the thing. I found several companies that made lapel pins and ordered samples of their work. But one stood out from the rest.

As I said, we were calling this the Pin Project, but about this time (which must have been early '95) a few of the women added a very resonable twist to the plans. They wanted to know if this symbol could be produced as a pendant for a necklace as well as a pin. I promised to look into that. Others were asking about everything from rings to wristwatches but that seemed premature.

The company I settled on was more expensive than the others but hardly unreasonable. I proposed them to the group because:

They would cast the pins as metal medallions rather than stamping them from plastic.
They would make pendants with no need for an additional costly mold as long as they were the same size as the pin.
They could provide several finishes and additional products down the line.
They would put the medallion on a Zippo lighter, and I wanted one of those.

I asked the group if the the resulting price (anywhere from about $15 to about $20, depending on finish) was within the range they had in mind and got back a resounding and multiple, "Yes! Let's go!!"

I sent the manufacturer a large drawing of the design and a check for the initial mold making and we settled on manufacturing specs. Then I settled down to wait for the prototypes. Sorta.

[design 2] Because it was about this time that the project left the confines of AOL and moved to the Net. Particularly to the alt.sex.bondage newsgroup (ASB). I placed posts there explaining what was going on and inviting any who were interested in joining the Pin Project to send me email. Many did and received a more detailed explanation of the project and this now archaic early sketch. (UUEncoded. Remember when we had to do that?). Many of those folks eventually ordered pins and pendants. This, by the way, was also the first version of the emblem ever to appear on the Web when it was kindly posted by the Multics webmaster at Wizvax.

The Emblem concept did not exactly create a storm of applause or controversy--at least not by ASB standards--but it did come in for a fair share of discussion. I remember that there were a couple people who seemed to consider the idea an affront to the Leather Pride symbol and disparaged the whole thing. Others supported it.

Meanwhile, I was collecting orders. I had fronted the money for the initial minting and was paying for lots of online time and phone calls. Younger readers may not remember the Days of Yore when AOL charged by the minute, but many of us oldsters still do. And, Oh Heavens Above do I remember those phone bills! After all that, I couldn't afford to purchase a large initial run and just hope that the orders would come. So I was taking orders in advance with the agreement that the checks would sit here uncashed until product was shipped. Since folks opted to trust me, I soon had a manilla envelope fat with preorders.

At the end of March, 1995, I had the prototypes on hand. They were wrong. The mint had left out the holes and the mold had an imperfection in one of the curved arms. They apologised and promised corrections in about a week. The new prototypes appeared on April 7 with the errors corrected and a brand new one in its place--the circle was out of whack. On April 15, a day not generally noted for good news, I sent a notice out to all who had ordered or expressed interest. It began: Okay, I just received the third set of prototypes and this time they're gorgeous!!! So we're ready to roll!

We had agreed to allow a few more weeks for last minute pre-orders, so the initial production order was placed during the second week of May, 1995. The first pins and pendants went out about six weeks later. For some time after, orders continued to trickle in, allowing me to place several small production orders and kept just enough on hand to meet the demand. Despite the fact that the rallying cry had always been, "We need a pin," from the outset, pendants outsold pens by a whole bunch to one. It only made sense to drop the name "the pin project" and I'v been calling this effort "The Emblem Project" ever since.

During late 1997, the Emblem exploded across the web. As more people became aware of the Emblem and the Project, good things started happening. Orders increased to the point where I could expand the line into key tags and money clips and eventually into precious metal items of sterling silver and 14K gold. Silverfoot created the long-awaited Emblem Ring. The project took up more and more of my time but it was more than paying for itself and kept growing. In fact, as sales grew, I was able to make increasingly large productions orders that allowed me to dramatically lower prices even as my producers raised their rates.

The Emblem Project is not a non-profit organization, it only feels that way ;-) I began as more of a service than a business and I try to keep that the attitude. I do, however, make a profit. A small one. In the early days, it was enough to buy myself an ocassional lunch. I considered it your way of thanking me for starting and running this endeavor. Nowadays, a portion of Emblem profits feeds my magic hobby. Other money in excess of my expenses goes into investigating and developing new products and educating about the Emblem within the BDSM community.