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. All these are objects for trade. I have many 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 nearly 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 had many colleagues in other countries sothis homepage should be understandable for as many people as possible. I do not offer national language support.

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

No - there is no official catalogue. I have only given each of my pins a unique 4-digit key to be able to easily identify them.

How did you make the pictures?

All pins were photographed with the aid of a tripod. I always try to make a shot from the top but sometimes I need to take the shot a little from the side to avoid reflexions - in special when pins have a shining surface. Unpretty or irregular photos were edited and optimized as good as possible. The next step then is always to go around the pin picture with the selection tool to cut away the background. Then I copy the pure pin picture into my template - the one with the blueish background. These JPG-pictures always have the size of 350 pixel in square. I also create a small version having 120 px in GIF-format which is much smaller in size and speeds up the loading time when having many pins selected.

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 anyway - so treat them as yours. But - please do not try to make money with my picures.

How do you store your pins?

At home I sticked all my pins into several picture frames with a cardboard as the backwall. I have covered the plate with 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.

What are special search strings?

IBM pins by year issued
Try a searchstring for example like "y2010" to see pins which IBM issued in the year 2010. Not all pins can clearly be mapped against a specific year so I often use the character "x" as a placeholder. Try "y199x" to see pins from the 1990th decade or "yxxxx" where the date is totally unknown. This is work in progress and not complete for all pins (y0000).
#ab - to see the pins designed by "Arthus Bertrand - Paris". (work in progress)
#anim - to see the pins which also exist in an animated version. See the category "Xtra.Animations".
#cardboard - to see all pins which were issued on a piece of cardboard; often with a slogan of the campaign
#cutout - to filter all pins which have a cutout part; so they are not solid.
#zshape - to see the mainframe pins having the shape of the character "Z".
#tietack -special mechanism of the pin back.
In Progress