The following is adapted from a posting to the BARGE history ML by Patrick Milligan.

A little over a year ago, Ernst-Dieter Martin (aka ADB Jupiler) had the bright idea to create a lapel pin for BARGE 2000. In Europe, many of the poker tournaments have such pins, and he wanted to bring that tradition to BARGE.

I first met Dieter when he attended a home NLHE tournament that I hosted. He liked the Presto door signs that I had made, and enlisted my help in his pin design. His original design concept looked like:

We bounced around many ideas and images for a pin via email, and over the course a week or so, we had our final design in the hands of a local engraver who also did pins as a sideline. Our design for the BARGE 2000 pin ended up looking like:

Dieter made 150 pins, priced them at $4, and sold or gave away all of them. I received 6 pins for my design work, and gave away five of them (two as bounties, one to Lee Jones, one to Dana Smith, and one to Oklahoma Johnny Hale).

Paul Stine liked the BARGE 2000 pin so much that he created a pin for MARGE 2000.

Paul also used his design for a MARGE hat. The pin vendor that he found via the Internet did a much better job than one Dieter and I used for the BARGE pin.

Dieter and I were contacted by Lou Krieger to do a pin for his ESCARGOT 2001 event. We decided to use Condor Creations, the same pin vendor that Paul had used. I was able to communicate design ideas via my web site, and we quickly converged on the final design:

Lou liked the pin design, and used it for the event logo and on the hats that were created for ESCARGOT. Here's a photo of Steve "BIA" Nissman modelling both the hat and pin:

photo by Charles "Garnishmensch" Natkins

After returning from ESCARGOT, I volunteered to help Ken Kubey with a pin for TARGET. We made an undated pin since TARGET usually attracts only 30-40 attendees, and the minimum pin order is 100 pins. Ken gave pins to everyone that attended TARGET 2001. That pin design looks like:

In the meantime, Paul Stine had come up with a really nice design for SARGE 2001. Unfortunately, SARGE 2001 was cancelled, so Paul's design won't be made this year:

As I look back over the past year, I see each new pin design is a little bit better than the ones that came before. I'm proud whenever I see an RPGer wearing one of my pin designs. I can't speak for Paul, but I've had a *blast* exercising my creative side in the design of these pins.

Continuing in this new tradition, I've come up with a pin design for BARGE 2001. It is based on the designs used on the 2001 chip sets and coin. The year 2001 is a special one, especially to fans of Stanley Kubrick's film and Arthur C. Clarke's book, "2001: A Space Odyssey." Our answer to the monolith in 2001 is the "Prestolith" which is found on the moon and other places within our solar system and also in deep space.

Comments/Suggestions/Corrections mail Michael Hunter.