So, I believe it's been a while (about 9 months) since this was talked about, but there's been a great new development. Remember when I was talking about my ideal badge, and how the pearls on the Lambda are unnecessary additions to our perfect brotherhood badge? If not, you can download this
document (which will recap that Greekchat discussion) that led to the creation of this badge.
Well, I pursued the creation of a new-and-improved badge, and with a huge deal of help from Joe Klimek, the new badge is physically sitting by my side right now. As you can remember, I described the ideal badge as:
"A yellow (or white) gold badge with etched Lambda and 8 pearls in the crescent, properly placed."
Well, after a lot of working and waiting, I received mine (in white gold) in the mail today! Here's what happened since March:
Since I wanted this badge so much, I had to try to figure out some way to have it made for me. I looked around at local jewelers, but the prices were far too high. Soon, good news came in the form of a phone call from a brother and friend up at LCA Headquarters, Joe Klimek. Joe said that he had seen my "Frankensteined" mock-up (from Greekchat) and liked the idea. Soon, serious conversations were happening between him and our fraternity's Herff Jones representative to get my digital image of the mock-up into the production phase. Through a lot of trial and error, the jewelers worked to create a brand new mold (although to me, it looks similar to two pieces of other previous badges) and cast the prototype. That was sent to Headquarters for approval, and then given the go-ahead for mass production. I was contacted by Herff Jones to receive my special badge, the first one (other than the prototype) to come out of the new cast. I had it cast in white gold (although yellow gold and, perhaps soon, sterling silver are other options). So you can get a good look at it, and because the photography is unavailable online as of yet, I've included some fun pictures of my new badge at
THIS webpage. It's a very basic webpage that displays my new WHITE GOLD badge. The manufacturer (The Greek Division of Herff Jones) will be releasing these badges into the market very soon. They are awaiting photography to come in, in order to put it on their website (hjgreek.com), but you can see it now by visiting that page.
I'm not sure exactly on the price at which the badge will be sold, as they sounded unsure on a final price during communications, but it seems likely that it will be sold on their website for around $100.00. For the record, I'm not selling this or in any way affiliated with the jewelers...just letting you know. I hope you like it! I know my future son will in a couple of decades.
Yours in Z A X ,
New Badge for Lambda Chi Alpha!
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