Product Challenge

In addition to our existing product selection, product challenges force us to think outside the box. Here's a few solutions to the following challenges.

We've got this big bag of original red tape. What can we do with it? A little background: By the end of the American Civil War, the practice of binding important documents with red ribbon was common throughout the western world. Civil War veterans' records were bound in red ribbon, and the difficulty in obtaining those records to file pension claims led to the modern American use of the term "red tape."

We came up with the idea of combining the red tape with ephemera taken from the time period the tape was in use. We also connected with Kevin Clark, conservation biologist, science educator and fabricator at 'Bug Under Glass', and inquired if he would be interested in creating non-insect related pieces. Here's how we turned some relatively bland and faded red ribbon into compelling souvenir items for the National Archives: 

I have lots of jewelry-related items for women but am light in the men's department. Any ideas? Since the Archives audience isn't only out-of-town visitors, but a substantial group of local D.C. residents and government-affiliated shoppers with strong opinions, we thought it would be fun to play with the phrase 'my two cents'.

A little background: "My two cents" (2¢) is an American idiomatic expression, taken from the original "to put in my two pennies worth." By deprecating the opinion that follows, suggesting its value is only two cents, the user of the phrase hopes to lessen the impact of a potentially unpopular statement. A two-cent piece was produced by the Mint of the United States and was in circulation from1864 to 1872.

Blackington created for us a reproduction of the two-cent piece made of solid brass and stamped from a steel die, capturing the subtle details of the coin. The coin is then gold plated, resulting in a brilliant gold color, and was developed into the following gift items: