Manufactured in 2017 and released on the occasion of April Fool's Day 2020 (the majority of the Zoltan pins were given away for free via our Instagram on 4.1.2020).
In August of 2017 we read an Atlas Obscura article about a vintage pin of a brown creature with the name GEEDIS underneath. This discovery led to a great mystery. An internet sleuth realized that the creature depicted in the pin was from a 1981 sticker sheet entitled "The Land of Ta" that featured more characters. What is GEEDIS? What is The Land of Ta? Who made the GEEDIS pin? Are there any other Land of Ta character pins? We were instantly hooked on the mystery.
In 2017 we designed and manufactured a Zoltan pin and tried as hard as we could to make it look vintage. Zoltan is another character included in the Land of Ta sticker sheet that included Geedis. The "PSA" in PSA Press stands for Public Service Announcement but we included an easter egg on the back of the pin with the creation of a new company for this release, the Pin Society of America.
We purposefully manufactured them so there would be color inconsistencies from pin to pin. For example some have red mouths, some have green. Some have enamel in the arm bands, and some have been left empty to expose the gold metal. Some have a full epoxy coating, and some have areas that were left empty. We commonly use muted colors and intentional flaws on other vintage style pins that we design. Vintage pins are not designed "well" by modern standards and have flaws which is something we love and try to embrace.
Since 2017 we have been "seeding" Zoltan pins all across the country by donating them to various thrift stores, street vendors, posting an eBay listing of a scuffed up pin, etc. in order to encourage the discovery of the pin. Also, thanks to our Instagram followers we were able to procure a vintage GEEDIS pin for our collection.
Since then the story exploded and the result is a dedicated subreddit r/Geedis that has over 15 thousand members dedicated to exploring the mystery. Because of this community some great findings have been made including the discovery of the artist who originally drew the artwork used for the 1981 sticker sheet, and the birth of GEEDIS/ZOLTAN.
We figured April Fools' Day 2020 was a good time to spill our beans.
Special thanks to Nate Fernald, Atlas Obscura, Endless Thread, and of course the entire r/Geedis community for creating and researching one of the best internet mysteries of all time and certainly one of the best stories in pin collecting of the past few years.
Zoltan enamel pin
Based on artwork by Sam Petrucci
1.25 inches
Designed and manufactured to our exacting US standards in true vintage style.
