Pins in Limbo Find New Light

Photo by forgetmenot_pins

By Jasmine Sanchez

Months of excitement often dissolve into disappointment and frustration when an enamel pin seller disappears without a trace and their projects are abandoned. Most pin collectors lose hope of ever seeing the pins they ordered. Rather than accept the loss, one avid pin collector grew tired of the endless stories and has attempted to rectify the wrongs of others. Lainey, more commonly known as forgetmenot_pins and who refrained from sharing her last name, has successfully rescued pins from limbo.

Her more recent rescue revolves around parzival_pins, a former pin seller who had roughly 30 designs at different stages in production and had abandoned them all when he hit a financial wall. Instead of accepting responsibility and communicating about the hole he found himself in, he stopped responding to customers.

For a previous rescue, Lainey contacted Parzival’s wife in hopes that she would encourage him to respond. Luckily, she succeeded in establishing communication and received permission to take over the Miraculous Moonlight pins only. Parzival later contacted another manufacturer to give her permission to rescue the rest of the pins as well.

Once the Miraculous Moonlight pins were successfully rescued and delivered to owed customers, Lainey turned her attention to another factory that had a total of 19 designs. She learned that all the pins were completed but remained in the factory, awaiting payment of the remaining deposit and shipping costs, which totaled $8,589.10.

To raise the necessary funds, she concocted a plan to hold a giant pin sale on the 27th of October. She posted on her Instagram that she would be “cutting into [her] personal collection down by ¾ and selling all of [her] traders – even the ones that were originally not for sale.”

In the meantime, she sold items like buttons, unopened lotions, and candles, and graciously accepted donations, with all profits going to the rescue fund. She would consistently update whenever a donation was placed or an item was sold.

In an interview, Lainey mentioned that some individuals tried to persuade her to prioritize certain pins over others and even suggested she ‘steal’ a specific design if she couldn’t locate the factory. She felt that “people were thinking about themselves before thinking about the fact that [she] wasn’t the one who… presaled the pins and [she] didn’t stop responding to customers.”

The stress of having to organizing over 1,000 pins while constantly feeling unappreciated by the community was slowly becoming detrimental to her mental health. She dreaded checking her notifications on Instagram until she took some time for herself to feel more comfortable about the rescue.

On September 30th,  Lainey delivered bad news about the rescue. She wrote, “After talking yesterday, [Parzival] let [her] know that beside the factory [she is] working with right now, he has no contact information for the other factories that ghosted him.”

Lainey also asked presale buyers to send screenshots of their Paypal transactions with Parzival. For presale buyers whose designs were not included in the rescue, Lainey provided an alternative. She offered for them to create a list of items from Parzival’s Etsy if they didn’t want a refund.

With earnings from the Moonlight Miraculous pins, donations, and other items sold, just only 22% of the needed funds were raised. She had also received a generous donation of enamel pins to be sold for the live sale.

On October 27th, the pin sale lasted 8 to 9 hours. Lainey presented six boxes filled with enamel pins. She sold around 400 pins in just the live sale, and sold more in the comment to claim, where customers comment on an Instagram post with a code word or "sold" to claim a pin, and reach her initial goal and more.

Another challenge arose when Lainey tried to pay for the pins, the representative attempted to extort $1,000 more than the agreed price, which Lainey found was very upsetting. She put her foot down and let the representative know that Parzival was not going to pay for the pins and neither would she at the raised cost.

Once the representative accepted the agreed price, Lainey immediately posted for individuals whose pins were not being rescued to fill out a form for a refund. The additional funds raised during and after the live sale could only cover a handful of refunds for customers.

Lainey has finished grading, assessing their quality, nine of the designs with ten more to go. She has put in immense work into making sure many of Parzival’s customers get their pins and refunds. It is a testament to her commitment and care for fellow collectors.

Lainey shared, “After this rescue, I would personally like to take just a little break from rescuing pins and just focus on [creating] my [own] pins.”