As you all know I am a big Harry Potter fan; I love the books and the movies and as a result of this I tend to collect some of the merchandise; so I have a house scarf, many many notebooks and I’ve just ordered my tarot cards from KookieAndRookie, go take a look the cards are awesome.
Anyway, back to the story. KookieAndRookie follow Greg aka thegregwholived and I follow KookieAndRookie on Instagram and Instagram suggested I might like to follow Greg, so I followed the link and saw what Greg was working on, the Hogwarts Duelling Pins, and I was very impressed and decided there and then that as soon as Greg was taking orders I would be placing one, so I started following Greg.
What is also very impressive is that Greg is giving £0.50GBP from each badge sold to The Trevor Project, The Trevor Project provide crisis intervention and suicide prevention to LGBTQ under 25’s.
So, not long after clicking the ‘follow’ button I got the update I was waiting for and I contacted Greg and placed my order. Greg kept me up to date about my order and within a couple of days it arrived.
Without further ado I opened the box and as you can see from the opening picture the pins had been packed securely for travel and each one was wrapped separately and included with the pins was a hand-written note, a couple of Greg’s cards and a Harry Potter trading card. It was a real pleasure to open the box and see how much effort had gone into packing and sending the pins.
When I unpacked one of the pins the first thing, I noticed was the size; these are substantial pins at approximately 25mm x 85mm they need two pins on the back to support them. The little caps for the pins are plastic and are a good tight fit so there is no reason to be concerned about losing your pin. The overall finish is excellent, the Duelling Club design is a wonderful interpretation of the one in the film and the colour match on my pin, Gryffindor, is spot on.
It is clear that a lot of time and effort has gone into designing and producing these pins and getting the details just right and for anyone who collects pins, especially Harry Potter pins, this is one you need to add to your collection.
At £10.00GBP plus shipping these pins are definitely worth your pennies whichever house you are in you need to get your Duelling Club pin.
I am going to leave the final words of this review to Greg, when I asked him what the inspiration was behind the pins, this is what he said:
“So I basically decided to make pins because I was inspired by the pin makers here on Instagram but there were things nobody had done and merch I’ve always wanted that’s never been made
The duelling club pins was something I always loved from the films and would definitely be a part of at Hogwarts so I got to work designing them ☺️”
Disclaimer: The pins were purchased with my own funds at retail price. The opinions expressed in this review are my own; and I am not connected with either the retailers or manufacturers in any way.
The Indian Marmalade Company 