Herff Jones production times?
 

What is everyone averaging? My daughter is 4+ months out from Initiation and no sign of badges for her chapter.

I’ve read how collegians aren’t as into wearing their badges anymore. Well no wonder—they don’t have them!

For my chapter, badges usually don't come in until the next semester. This year my university has moved to deferred recruitment, so I assume our whole PC will be waiting until next school year to receive their badges. It's definitely frustrating, especially given so many new members choose to order the basic badge option, rather than a more complicated one.

Frustrating. HJ should do better. I wonder if ΔΓ and other orgs who use different suppliers have the same issues?

Delta Gamma is moving to HJ. There were evidently some quality control issues with the previous vendor. I wonder when the above badges were ordered? Some don’t order till after initiation so that could be a reason.

I am afraid that is becoming true all around for both Men/Women.

LXA for some years charged $10.00 in ritual fees for a basic cheapy badge as part of the package. Amazing guys still did not wear them!

Lamenting the days when we were Proud to wear our Colors, names, and badges.:o

My daughter's chapter uses J. Brandt for their pins. The new members ordered their badges 5 weeks before initiation, and they arrived in time to receive them at initiation. I don't know about any quality issues, but their turnaround time was very fast.

I think there have been a couple of threads here where members complained of poor quality control with HJ. So, Delta Gamma may not be getting any better service from HJ. :(

Herff Jones quality control is a lot to be desired.

Agree. I wish we would switch away from HJ.

I know that Pi Phi has a stockpile of badges already pre-made. It only took 2 weeks for them to engrave my daughter's and send it to her chapter in time for initiation. They include a gold-filled "basic cheapy badge" (lol, Tom) with the new member fees, so the numbers of new members who spring for a solid gold or jeweled badge may be limited and manageable. Also, they only offer a limited number of choices. We have so many customization options, it would be really hard to have a stockpile. It takes several months for our new members' badges to arrive after ordering through H-J.

AND, remember how Delta Delta Delta had their stockpile stolen in that employee theft a couple years ago? So, there are downsides to keeping a stockpile.

It usually takes a semester or so for our chapter to get their Quills. For some reason for the small orders of 5 or less they always seem to lose them.

Long-time GC posters know of my struggle getting HJ to fix a poorly-made ADPi badge. I ordered in October, received it in February, and sent it back and forth more than once without them fixing the problem (crooked hands on the badge) before my mom and I brought it to their factory in Rhode Island physically to get it fixed. And I was looking at it when I had it out for badge day yesterday and the hands still aren't perfectly even.

At this point, with the exception of limited-edition badges, I'm not planning on ever ordering a new one again. Buy vintage. The quality has been so cheap that my badge doesn't even feel worth keeping as an heirloom.

What ever happened with that?

It’s just unacceptable and frustrating so many organizations are using them. My daughter’s chapter did wait to order until initiation and I DO understand some production time for engraving, etc. But you don’t have to be a marketing genius to estimate which badges you’ll need the most of.
ADPi, ZTA, and others that have endless (and wonderful!) options are one thing, but many orgs are limited enough to have the majority pre-produced.

Not to mention the pictures on the website are horrible.

Our new members order theirs the first week I believe, or at least we did when I was a new member, along with a one-time new member fee payable by money order or check. So they order them, get initiated 6ish weeks later, but still wait the whole semester. It's kind of ironic, since Badge Day is in March and many new initiates won't have badges to wear.

Didn’t Balfour make jewelry for GLOs long time ago??? I think they made my badge.

Nearly positive they made my initial one. Sadly, it was lost, and my replacement came from JBrandt.

We ordered ours around October and got them in January. We weren't offered any engraving beyond the chapter number and member number on the back.

My original plain Balfour one has my name, chapter and date of initiation on it. My replacement for my diamond that was stolen just has initials,chapter,month and year of initiation.

AEPhi currently uses HJ for badges. I honestly don't remember if they were our supplier when I was a collegian *mumble* years ago, but, back in the day, new members' badges always arrived in time for initiation. This is probably in part because we had exactly one option. (Now I think we have two options, 10k or 14k gold. Be still, my heart. :p ) Your initials were engraved on the back, you either bought a chapter guard or you didn't, end of story, no other customization allowed. So the turnaround time was quick.

Balfour was the official jeweler when I was initiated (there were still dinosaurs roaming the earth in those days). Mine had my badge number and chapter on. When I went on the leadership team, I rescued a pin that had pearls (mine was plain) from Ebay. It too had a number and chapter letters. When I checked with National, they said it was from a woman who was initiated 40 years before me.

DaffyKD

Interesting history on why Balfour isn’t still producing badges:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/L.G....rority_jewelry

I remember this too. It was determined to be an inside job.

https://www.dallasnews.com/news/crim...s-in-arlington

I'm not sure the years but I think there was a short period of Balfour badges for us and the numbering system is totally screwed up on those badges. Instead of our normal Chapter-Member Number the Balfour badges are just A-#### and I think I've seen a B-####

I know exactly what you mean, Clemson Girl! These badges and symbols mean so much to us, and I don't think that many badges are made well enough to represent it. Thankfully my Alpha Gam badge seems to look as it should, but it's not necessarily worth the $220 I paid for it. I'm hoping to find a white gold vintage badge eventually, even though I know it will take patience and luck!

My initiation badge was our plain gold version. I couldn’t make up my mind which of the seemingly endless varieties to choose from. Years later I got my turquoise white gold badge from headquarters. I would never buy a new badge. Cheaply made with little attention to detail.

When I got initiated, we weren't given an option. We automatically got the cheapie badge. I dunno if that was due to whoever was in charge of that or what. Some sisters later ordered the nicer badge. I've never gotten around to getting the nice one. I'd prob order one off eBay. I'd rather a sister (me) buy it rather than someone wanting to melt it down for gold and pearls.

Yep - I have a Balfour badge from 1982 and the number on the back is B-####. One of these days I'm going to have it removed and replaced with my chapter and initials.

I agree with all who say the quality of the recent badges leaves a lot to be desired. We have a special badge since the Panhel National President is an AOII for two years, and a good number of members who ordered that badge had problems with it, mostly the ones who ordered a holder to go with it. The badges came mounted off center in the holder or had asymmetrical stone placement in areas. I've also heard people complaining about losing pearls.

Forgot to update! DD finally got her badge—10 months after initiation, and the diamond shaped badge in the middle is crooked! Sooo disappointing. Can’t imagine how long replacement will take.

My badge from 1966 is a Balfour and is very special and well made with emeralds and pearls. We ordered our pins prior to initiation (of course in the olden days we pledged in August but weren't initiated until March) I remember when we all clustered around looking at options.

I also loved our pledge pin and 2nd degree pin we wore the the week before initiation. Are pledge pins even worn anymore. In the day, our big sisters allowed us to wear their pin after initiation until our pins arrived which was maybe a month after initiation. Special memories.

I could have written this. I remember us all making the decision which pin we wanted. It meant that initiation was not too far off. Rush was in August, initiation was in February. Our initiation fee included the plain pin (they were only gold in those days- no silver pins). I wore my Big Sister's pin until ours finally arrived full of fanfare. Unfortunately, my pledge sister/best friend loaned her pin to her little sister at initiation and the little never returned it to her.

I remember the excitement I felt when I received my pledge pin. I loved that little pin.

DaffyKD

At the chapter I advise, they order their badges in week 2, and we usually get them by end of the semester. Most times we will use bigs' badges for initiation. DPhiE doesn't provide options for badges. It's either the cheap gold plate badge with no pearls, cheap gold plate with fake pearls or 10K gold with pearls. I lost my original 10K gold with pearls badge in a move, and I ordered a new one - 6 of the 21 pearls have fallen out. It's not even worth it to keep sending it back. I'll just get a vintage one.

These days, Pledge Pins don't even leave the house / chapter room! Notice how many badges on E-Bay state they are Balfour. My friend, who is a chpater advisor, advises the new members to buy the sterling silver badge and get a vintage gold one from E-bay.

I honestly think it seems as though groups with little to no customization options have a better experience with HJ overall than those that do allow customization.

SAI National Headquarters sends badges to the chapter after the members in training have paid their initiation fees and passed the exam and chapters are not supposed to hold initiation without having received them.

I’ve thought about trying to get mine engraved, but having read all the tales of having to send them to HJ and wait to get them back…well.

My ordering experience with accessory jewelry from them has been fine—the two rings, custom chapter letter guard, and convention charm I have were all great ordering experiences, and only the charm would have been one that didn’t require much production time because I ordered it after convention had happened and I think they had a decent stock of them. The rings required time because of my ring size, and I wanted my letter guard to be the same metal as my badge (10k) and I had also fallen in love with the chased look, which didn’t cost much more than the plain gold one.

I received an alumnae honor at our convention which involves an attachment to our badge. I have a silver badge and had to order mine. Got it today. So, 3 months. But, at this time of year, when they are in overtime mode making badges, I'm pretty pleased it came so quickly.

A lot of y'all know about my struggles with HJ and their very poor quality control, so suffice it to say that I'm not surprised this is an ongoing issue and I wish more organizations would consider moving to J. Brandt or taking their business elsewhere.