I’ve long had a liking for badges. This is not an unusual passion and I’ve been content to just graze around picking them up here and there. Recently I’ve been thinking about making my own, bringing in some of my more design-happy friends as well as myself, and selling them.
There seem to be two options. Firstly I could outsource it to one of the many badge companies out there. Best Badges come recommended and their prices are reasonable, starting at £25 for 100. The problem is that’s one design and I’d be more interested in doing lots of short-runs ending up with a tub of madness for people to shuffle through.
The other option is to get my own badge making machine. There are cheap ones on the market but I’m not convinced of the quality so I’d be looking to get a nice industrial looking one like in the picture here. A check on eBay puts the 25mm ones at about £75 though I can’t find any suppliers of the raw badges themselves. I guess some kind of monster craft shop would do them in bulk, assuming there aren’t compatibility issues. On top of this is the issue of printing out the designs. Inkjet isn’t any use (rain) so it’ll have to be colour laser which I’m guessing can be done at your standard reprographics store. All in all I think we’re looking at a good £100-125 outlay meaning I’d have to sell 250 or so badges at 50p each to break even.
Why am I telling you this? Well, there’s a good chance someone might have an old badge maker in their cupboard or know of a good supplier for this kind of thing. The comments box is yours.
I’ve got a couple of the cheapo “Badge It!” machines. You’re right though that they aren’t up to much. They also don’t do the little 25mm badges that you young punkindie kids are into these days.
Euan at http://majorleaguer.blogspot.com got a really (really) good deal on little badges from one dude. I’ll ask him tonight who that was.
If you’re all about having your own machine you do have to watch out for compatibility of raw badge materials. I’ve looked into them a bunch of times (bad badge collector) and the problem always seems to be that while the top part of the badge always fits no problem, the different fastenings/backs don’t fit into different machines. They want you to buy their own parts (its where they make their money I think) and they’re all small american companies. What we need is a nice EU company doing them in big cheap bulk. I’ll ask around.
I would have thought that you’re living in the right city for badge making machines, just a matter of finding a company that is sending its manufacturing operations to China.
That said, if you do get your own machine, could you use ink jet prints with a clear thin flexible plastic sheet cover over the top? I assume that both the print and the cover would be crimped between the front and back metal components of the badge. But then I have never actually used a badge making machine.
hi there,
someone pointed me your way and thought I would drop you a line. We are much cheaper than Best Badges and are also very flexible…
we don’t have limits on colour and allow up to 4 different designs in 100, but are also flexible to meet your needs!
anyway pricing is as such
50 – £10
100 – £17
200 – £30
300 – £40
500 – £65
1000 – £110
5000 – £500
We also make shiny transparent badges which can be viewed on our site.
Thanks a lot for your time,
Luke
http://www.awesomebadges.co.uk
hows about this?
http://www.craftdepot.co.uk/contents.cfm?maincat=29
Well there you go. Badgeman Deluxe! But if are still thinking of doing it your way, I’d say that a laminator might be in order, or maybe even a tin of shellac.
And while we’re on the topic of badges, does anyone know a place that makes metal stamps? The circular kind with words that are used for thing like notarising. I want to emboss bits of plastic with various bits of text.
bse: cheers – that’d be really useful.
Paul: The problem with inkjet is water will get in at the edges of the plastic if you get caught in a downpour. Plus I suspect laser printing will be more vibrant (unless I use expensive paper for the inkjet, which ups the price again)
Luke: No offense, but your site is just a big Flash file which doesn’t work on my computer. I’d need to see what your badges look like and what sort of pins they use before ordering any and I can’t do that. HTML is the way forward matey.
Rob: Very useful – thanks. Their raw badges work out at 23p each which seems a little steep. Unfortunately they lose because they use that system of sticking the pin onto the badge with a sticky patch thing. That system sucks big time.
By sheer coincidence a nice lady gave me a badge last night which she’d made herself. It’s a snap-together thing that isn’t exactly what I’m after but she bought them at £30 for 1000 – 3p each. If nothing else it’d be a good starting point. Hopefully she’ll get in touch soon!
Yeah so dude said he got his badges from this dude: http://www.skadonsbadges.co.uk/frame.html
They seem pretty good to me. Depends how complex you want to get.
I emailed someone who has a nice machine like the one pictured to ask where they got it and if they can still get parts for it…
http://www.buttonbadgesonline.co.uk/ do self assembly ones. Price on the site is a bit higher than I was told at £53.60 per 1000 plus vat which is about 6p a badge.
Also had email from someone local who has a machine and does them for 15p a pop.
bse: cheers for that. Those badges look like the sort of thing I’m after!
Try here: http://www.bigwowbadges.com/index1.htm
I have a hunch that the local badgemonger who contacted you was dacj alex but if not then I’m surprised (and recommend you talk to him) as he is all about the owning a big expensive badge maker and making badges aspects of life.
Yup, twas Alex. Not sure why I didn’t mention that really.