Custom
Die Struck Pins
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Why choose all-metal pins
A die struck pin uses only the metal itself to carry the design. Raised areas catch the light, while the recessed areas fall into shadow. That contrast makes a monogram or short name clearly readable on a lapel. People often read an all-metal pin as an award someone earned. Turning the pin sends the highlights across its face.
Companies come to us for years-of-service awards and for pins staff wear on a uniform through the work week. Schools and alumni groups order die struck lapel pins around graduation, and police and fire departments ask for a badge-style pin. Clubs want them for members, and brands want an understated logo pin. All metal pins work with a uniform or a suit, since no palette has to match the clothes. Brand colors change after a few years, so a full-color pin from early in a long program can look dated by the end. A program that runs for a decade or more can give year ten a pin that matches year one, and people usually keep it.
Making the pin
We cut a negative of the shape of your design into a hard piece of steel called the die. A press then drives that die into a blank of metal the same way coins are struck. The result carries your art in the metal itself. We plate the pin afterward, and an antique plating darkens the low areas.
We can cut any custom shape, so the outline follows the art exactly. We keep the mold for three years from your latest order, with each reorder starting those three years again. We keep the artwork forever, which makes a later reorder easy to start.
Picking a finish
Gold and silver remain the standard choices for their clean, classic appeal. Copper offers another metallic option that feels a touch more interesting while still looking conventional. Black nickel and black metal deliver a bolder, darker presence for those who want something less ordinary. Antique Gold, Antique Silver and Antique Copper give a more weathered, vintage look that darkens the recessed areas so the raised design and small lettering stand out, especially on a name or service year. Antique is our premium finish, with the depth and character of that weathered look.
Die struck or enamel
Die struck pins have no color in the design, only the shape and finish of the metal itself. If you want color, consider our soft enamel or cloisonné pins, which start out the same as a die struck pin before color fills the recessed areas. The design on a die struck pin can hold up to more wear because it lives entirely in the metal. A plain metal finish looks dignified with business clothes. A die struck pin also carries real weight next to an embroidered patch or a printed button.
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Built
to last
A pin people wear every day should stay simple and hold up, which is what die struck is built for. The lettering on a university’s First-Gen Grad pin is struck into a plain metal face, and that face keeps the name readable.
Shape defines
the pin
Pick die struck when you want the outline to carry the design, since this style is about shape over color. Glasses and a bow tie, cut as the shape of an optician’s pin, let a customer recognize the trade from the silhouette.
Traditional
authority
Struck metal brings a traditional, refined feel to a pin that should look like part of the role. On a detective agency’s shield badge, the struck lines give the uniform that same feel.
Ready to create your Lapel Pins?
We've got answers
Most questions about die struck pins come down to how they are made and whether they can carry color.
The whole pin is metal, and the image comes from the high and low parts of the surface, since enamel never goes into the design. Plating sets the surface tone once forming is done. An antique option makes the words easier to see.
The term describes how the pin is formed. A steel die carrying your design in reverse strikes a metal blank under heavy force and sets the lines into the surface, the way coins are made.
After you approve the proof, we build a die from the art and a press shapes each pin in metal. Plating comes next, and an antique choice shades those lines during that step. We attach the backs last.
Soft enamel adds paint after the metal is formed, while a die struck pin stops before any paint goes on. Color fills the lowered parts on a soft enamel pin, and the die struck version relies on metal alone. Go with soft enamel when the design needs color, and with die struck when metal by itself is enough.
If the pin has color in the design, it is a soft enamel or cloisonné pin. A die struck pin takes its only color from the metal finish, in gold, silver, copper, black nickel, or black metal. The antique finishes, antique gold, antique silver, and antique copper, darken the recessed areas.
The minimum order is 100 pins. A larger size or a higher quantity shifts the quote, and ordering more brings down what each pin costs.
Production takes 3½-4 weeks from proof approval, often sooner, and transit adds a few days. We ship free inside the US, and there is no rush fee. If the pins have to arrive for an event, tell your rep the date up front.