IBM Pins at mypins.de

FAQs - Frequently Asked Questions

May I send you PINs which you already have ?

Do you collect non-IBM PINs ?

It depends. I also keep PINs from IBM subsidiaries like LOTUS. There are a very few alternate collecting categories but I do not spend so much time with them. Some other pins have been organised on my nonIBM page - have a look here: nonIBM Pins. All these are objects for trade. I have much more but I don't like to spend much times with them, so feel free to ask if you are looking for something special. The rest of my PINs will be thrown into a big box - they will be kept unsorted and are swappable objects or free gifts for others.

Why is your homepage in English ?

OK - it's a German internet domain (.de) and I am from Germany as well. But, IBM is a global company and I have many colleagues in other countries. Because I want to expand my collection with more and more international IBM PINs I want to have this homepage understandable for everyone.

What about the numbers of each pin - is there a catalogue ?

No - there is no official catalogue. I've only given each of my pins a unique number to be able to easily identify them.

How did you make the pictures ?

All pins have been scanned with 75dpi and 100% size. Unpretty or irregular scans have been edited and optimized as good as possible. Each PIN has been saved in a separate GIF-file. Pins in a non-rectangular format got a transparent color. Detailed pictures were scanned with 100dpi and 200% size so that you can read what's written on the pin. I am always having problems when scanning pins with a shining surface. The scanner light will be reflected by golden or silver pins - it mostly becomes black :-(

Why do your pictures load so fast ?

The small pin pictures have been compressed by my graphic program. That saves approximatly 50% in size and a difference in the quality is not visible in most cases.

May I copy your pin pictures ?

Of course. Take what you need. Copying cannot be prevented. All pictures you see on your screen are temporarily stored on your harddisk - so they are yours. I prefer to make the pictures myself; I sometimes borrow a picture when I want to add a missing pin.

How do you store your pins ?

At home I sticked all my pins into several picture frames with a cork plate or cardboard as the backwall. I have covered the cork plate with a blue silk - looks good (Btw: blue is my favorite color).

Do you make money with it ?

How does the search function work ?

For me it was an important piece of work to implement such a function. I am convinced that it is a major requirement of a visitor to find specific pins as easy and fast as possible. You probably recognized that all my pins are having a title. This mostly starts with the string "IBM" which shall indicate that the IBM logo or the text "IBM" is printed on the pin. I tried to use the text on the pin as a part of the title. The search function checks your searchstring against all my titles and comes back with pictures of all findings. You need not care about lowercase or uppercase letter - it works in both cases. This is a simple search function only - so you cannot combine a search using operators.