411
Backers
$25,183
pledged of $3,500 goal
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Funding period
Apr 3, 2012 -
Apr 30, 2012
- 3 created · 20 backed
- Dave Howell 277 friends
- Website: impobj.com
Pledge $6 or more
10 backers
Sampler: Labels to make eight PennyGem tokens; one in each of the eight colors.
Estimated delivery: May 2012Pledge $10 or more
23 backers
Super-sampler: Labels for sixteen PennyGems, two each of the eight colors
Estimated delivery: May 2012Pledge $18 or more
51 backers
Prism: Labels to make forty PennyGems; eight colors (white, red, orange,yellow, green, blue, purple, black), five tokens per color. (Not avail. for international. Canadians, as with all rewards this level and above, add $5 for shipping. Thanks.)
Estimated delivery: May 2012Pledge $18 or more
21 backers
Quartet: Labels to make forty PennyGems; four colors (red, blue, yellow, green), ten tokens per color.
Estimated delivery: May 2012Pledge $32 or more
98 backers
Rainbow: Labels to make 80 PennyGems; eight colors, ten tokens per color.
Estimated delivery: May 2012Pledge $55 or more
84 backers
Double Rainbow: Labels to make 160 PennyGems; eight colors, twenty tokens per color.
Estimated delivery: May 2012Pledge $74 or more
14 backers
International Double Rainbow: Labels to make 160 PennyGems; eight colors, twenty tokens per color, plus 200 U.S. pennies, and international shipping.
Estimated delivery: Jun 2012Pledge $90 or more
20 backers
Full Spectrum: Labels to make 320 PennyGems; eight colors, forty tokens per color.
Estimated delivery: May 2012Pledge $111 or more
6 backers
International Full Spectrum: Labels to make 320 PennyGems; eight colors, forty tokens per color, plus 400 U.S. one-cent coins, and international shipping.
Estimated delivery: Jun 2012Pledge $140 or more
69 backers
The Color Of Magic: Labels to make 540 PennyGems: NINE colors (including the special 'hologram' prismatic diffraction tokens), sixty tokens per color.
Estimated delivery: May 2012Pledge $175 or more
4 backers
International Color Of Magic: Labels to make 540 PennyGems: NINE colors (including the special 'hologram' prismatic diffraction tokens), sixty tokens per color, plus 700 U.S. one-cent coins, and international shipping. (Why so many extra pennies? Because some of them will be pretty dull and grimy.)
Estimated delivery: Jun 2012Pledge $250 or more
1 backer Limited (9 of 10 left)
Horse of a Different Color: Labels to make 800 PennyGems in up to eight colors _of your choosing!_ Pastels, your wedding colors, eight shades of nearly-black for Gothic Game Night, or whatever other colors a CMYK printer can create. For the "International" version, add $44. If you're feeling extra clever, you can even assign different colors to the front and back of each Gem, so what you really get is 16 groups of 100 labels. (Remember, it takes two labels to make a PennyGem.) Eight groups will be a single solid color. The other eight will have one of the eight standard icons, each on a solid color.
Estimated delivery: Jun 2012Pledge $300 or more
2 backers Limited (3 of 5 left)
Synthetic Diamonds: Labels for 800 PennyGems, in up to eight designs of your choosing. I'll use image files that you provide to make you a personalized set of PennyGems labels, printed on either chrome or white vinyl (you choose). Note that some images might be unreproduceable due to technical limitations or content. For the "International" version, add $44.
Estimated delivery: Jun 2012Pledge $550 or more
1 backer
Breakfast At Tiffany's: An armload of gems to roll in! Labels to make 2,160 PennyGems, which is 240 Gems in each of nine colors. Add $75 for the International version (includes pennies and shipping).
Estimated delivery: May 2012Pledge $1,000 or more
0 backers
Queen of England: So many Gems you'll need to build a tower just to store them! Labels to make 4,320 PennyGems in nine colors, 480 tokens per color. Add $102 for the International version (includes pennies and shipping).
Estimated delivery: May 2012Pledge $4,000 or more
0 backers Limited (2 of 2 left)
The Game's Afoot! Since it's hard to imagine what anybody would do with 8,640 PennyGems, we'll provide you with expert assistance. Not only will you receive nearly one thousand PennyGems in each of the nine colors, but game designer James Ernest will create a game based on your input for you to play with your new hoard. The game will be published with you receiving credit as the person who commissioned the game.
Estimated delivery: Jul 2012
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Show older commentsCreator James on July 1, 2012
Hey, funny thing is, yes, I didn't get an email, but the day after I complained, the pennygems showed up, so hey, all's good. And yes, yes... they are pretty freakin' cool. Worth the wait. I didn't even ask for the Token of Appreciation, but I got one anyways. I retract all complaints because I am a very happy customer now. :)
Dave, I sincerely look forward to whatever else you have in the future.
Creator Dave Howell on June 29, 2012
As a matter of fact, I thought I had too. So, here's one of the things that Kickstarter does that's kinda seriously stupid-ville. I cannot, in fact, definitively identify you. There are two people in my database with "James" as a backername. One of them picked Quartet as a reward. That person's order shipped two days ago, and an email message was sent to their email address of record. But I cannot actually definitively link that to you, because they do not give me any kind of unique user ID when they give me the backer records. It's probably you, since that person also lives in Florida. So hopefully your Gems will arrive in the next couple of days, and I don't know why you didn't see the e-mail message saying they'd been shipped.
Creator James on June 28, 2012
I chose the Quartet pledge and I still have not received my pennygems. I've been trying to be patient, and I have sent Dave Howell a message about this. Dave, if there is a reason for this, I'd like to know. I thought you had sent all of the regular pledges out by now?
Is anyone else having this issue? I live in Florida, it shouldn't be too hard to get them to me.
Creator Dave Howell on June 28, 2012
Via the generous assistance of one of my backers, I have a few 1- and 2-cent Euro coins of my own now. It's clear that the Wikipedia page that reports the diameter as 18.75 is erroneous: they are 18.9. The US coin has more relief and a raised rim vs. the 'sharp edge' (more of a straight right angle) of the European one. I believe the "slight sharp edge" that you report for the US pennies is, as you surmise, the result of slightly less precision in placing the labels in the first place. Each sticker actually as a *very* sharp edge, inasmuch as each label is shaped rather like a circular pizza cutter. In my testing, the Euro coin's slightly smaller diameter meant that, even when I took extreme care to get the label centered as precisely as possible, there was still just a little hint of "scrape" when I'd slide my finger across the edge of the assembled PennyGem. Under normal usage, I think it would be quite unnoticeable, but the same test on a carefully assembled original PennyGem feels (to me) like the edge had been carefully sanded smooth. I will probably at some point try reducing the diameter of the PennyGem labels from 18.8 to 18.7, but nevertheless, a few days ago I updated the descriptions on the Etsy site to say that PennyGems can be applied to the US 1-cent coin, the Euro 2-cent coin, and (as another backer has reported) the Australian 5-cent coin.
Creator Michael Jacob on June 28, 2012
PS: The first "sharp edge" in my last post was about the PennyGem label, the second "sharp edge" was about the 2 euro-cent coin having a sharper edge than the 1 us-cent coin.
Creator Michael Jacob on June 28, 2012
About the 2-Euro-cent coin: I made some photos: https://plus.google.com/photos/117273292432791213925/albums/5759082733377001713…
It is slightly smaller than the 1-us-cent coin, and I'd say it has the same size as the PennyGem labels. So there's no tolerance for centering the label. But, when comparing my "PennyGems on us 1 cent" with the "PennyGem on euro 2 cent" I found no real difference. Most of the us gems have a slight sharp edge. To me it looks like the wider rim and sharper edge of the 2-cent coin gives the label a better hold, and that offsets the smaller size. Or maybe I put the labels on more carefully for the euro coin...
Creator Michael Jacob on June 28, 2012
http://pe.usps.com/text/imm/fh_011.htm "Country Conditions for Mailing — Germany": "For Priority Mail International parcels, an invoice, in duplicate, is required for all commercial shipments regardless of value and all personal shipments valued at $300 or more. The invoices must be affixed to the outside of the parcel or may be enclosed in PS Form 2976-E with the customs declaration."
I just had the "fun" to get my package through customs...
Creator Jan Karell on June 24, 2012
A number of European countries (such as Finland) don't have 1 or 2-cent coins. But has 5 cents as the minimum available.
Also I got to use my pennygems this weekend. They're excellent for outdoor gaming, because of the added weight they are not as prone to being blown away by the wind so we used them instead of cardboard counters on a couple of games.
And oh how sweet they look. They are oh so awesome.
Creator Dave Howell on June 20, 2012
Yes, I need to make a number of changes to the ImpObj site, which I'm going to get around to any minute now. No, really. . . {shakes finger at self}
Creator Ross Thompson on June 20, 2012
Oh, also, you might want to update the Improbably Objects website to say that they're now available on Esty, instead of redirecting to the kickstarter.
Creator Ross Thompson on June 20, 2012
I'm in Ohio, not Europe, but I have at least three 2-cent Euro coins in my foreign coins jar (I just checked). All my Penny Gems are currently stuck down, but if you want to mail me a couple more, I'd be more than happy to send them back to you once they're applied. Or I could just send you the coins? That might be easier.
Creator Dave Howell on June 20, 2012
Well, how perplexing. I need a bit of assistance from somebody who had access to Euro coins. I figure I'll first inquire here in the comments area, and if none of my European backers happen to see my question, or can't help, then I'll fire off some emails directly to them. Here's the puzzle: for the Etsy store, I figured it would be better to have separate EuroPennyGems rather than keep mailing U.S. pennies all over kingdom come. I went back to Wikipedia to double-check the size of the 2-cent Euro coin and . . what do you know. Wikipedia doesn't agree with itself. The article explicitly about the "2-cent Euro coin" says the diameter is 18.75mm. However, the article on "Euro Coins" says that it is 18.9mm. Since a standard PennyGem label is 18.8mm, this is a critical difference. The current PennyGem *might* fit on an 18.9mm coin just fine. It definitely won't fit an 18.75mm coin.
So, if there's somebody with a 2-cent Euro coin or two in their pocket who would be willing to try applying a few of their PennyGem labels and report back, that would be very helpful. Thanks!
Creator K.C. Skedzielewski on June 16, 2012
For all those interested, this is the storage solution that I spent all day working on. The craftsmanship isn't the best, but I am quite proud, for them being my first real project.
http://boardgamegeek.com/image/1341721/kcskedz
Creator Debbie Norris on June 16, 2012
I hadn't opened my mail from Friday until now. I finally got my PennyGems. I really like them and they're much brighter than in the pic. Looking forward to using them soon. Cheers!!!!
Creator Ross Thompson on June 15, 2012
Mine took 3-4 days to Ohio.
Creator mouselet on June 13, 2012
I got my gems 3 days after I got the email and I'm in Chicago area.
Creator K.C. Skedzielewski on June 13, 2012
Can anyone from the midwest comment on the ETA after you get the email?
Creator Dave Howell on June 12, 2012
@Karl: yes, well, there just ain't no good way to display shiny/reflective on an LCD/CRT/computer display screen. I believe the images I originally posted are pretty much what I sent to the printer, so you can see what a phenomenal difference there is between what my computer tells me it's sending to the printer, and what comes out the other end. I have to run quite a few test prints every time I try to do a new color scheme or work with a new type of vinyl. I've already printed at least five different versions of the pastel PennyGems, and I still need to work on the lavender and the dark gray.
Creator Leon Samadi on June 12, 2012
Thank you, Julia! :)
Creator Karl R. Olson on June 12, 2012
I thought the image had changes between posting and printing. It looks amazing, and rather different, on the gem itself. Thank you for making those available!
Creator Julia Gosztyla Ziobro on June 12, 2012
@Leon, Dave is super-friendly to our OCD tendencies... send him a message using the link above and I'm pretty sure he'll mail you a new purple symbol label. :-)
Creator Julia Gosztyla Ziobro on June 12, 2012
So Dave stopped by my house last night on his way from making the rest of the Penny Gems needed to complete Kickstarter orders. *pause as you recover from your jealous swoon* I got to see and fondle some FANTASTIC new objects... I'm scared to steal his thunder, but let's just say there are BIG things, PASTEL things, WILDLY SHINY things, and TINY things all in the future of Penny Gems and Penny Gem-like objects. If you're like me, a human magpie, you must keep your eyes pasted on Dave's Etsy shop http://www.etsy.com/shop/seasnarke where future lovelies will be introduced and available. He is going to get SO MUCH more money out of me! *evil laughter* It's really a thrill to be a Penny Gem focus-group tester... I love prototypes and can imagine so many ways to use these things.
Creator K.C. Skedzielewski on June 12, 2012
In terms of storage, I was just at Jo-Ann last night to buy supplies to make draw string bags for my copy of Neuroshima Hex, and I realized that I was already buying 9 colors of fake silk fabric for that, so I grabbed a few extra colors and intend to make small draw string bags fear each of the 8 colors that I am getting....later this week!!!! I will post a link to a BGG blog once I have finished them, which it seems won't be this week(stupid third wedding this year).
Creator Leon Samadi on June 11, 2012
Is there any option of ordering one single specific label? I have no idea what happened, but I seem to be missing a purple label with a symbol on it. Now. my ocd is kicking in that I have one incomplete set.
Creator Rusty Q. Shackleford on June 11, 2012
Well, not a Lot of hassle. But hassle enough to probably mean we'd end up getting lazy.
Creator Rusty Q. Shackleford on June 11, 2012
*wonders if there's a way he could send an additional $2 to get some of them pennies for himself along with his order* Was gonna be quite a hassle finding new pennies...
Creator Dave Howell on June 9, 2012
Wow! PennyGem Jackpot!!!! I mentioned in my last update that there had been a lot of international orders going out. As it happens, I ran out of rolls of pennies again. I have discovered that, just as the Mint (and thus banks) have a standard unit of "a roll" of pennies (50 pennies to a roll) they also have a standard unit of "a box" (50 rolls in a box). I have twice now walked into a local branch and bought a box of pennies. $25, 50 rolls, 2500 pennies per box.
Banks cannot ask the U.S. Mint to give them new coins. They just order coins, and the mint sends out boxes of them. Banks also probably construct rolls and boxes of coins that come into the local branch, but a lot of coins get sent back to the mint, which inspects them, pulls coins that are too badly mangled to leave in circulation, boxes the remainder back up, and send them back out again. However, they are also introducing new coins whenever (I assume) they receive an order for coins and they don't have enough old ones available to fill the order. They don't bother mixing new and old together (I don't think), they just box up the new ones and send them out, maybe with whatever remaining old ones might be at the bottom of the bin.
A few minutes ago, I opened my third box of pennies. From the mint, the coins are wrapped in clear plastic wrappers, not paper ones, so I can clearly see which pennies are old and somewhat tarnished, and which ones are fairly new, and shiny. I have five old pennies. Not five rolls; five pennies. The other 2,495 pennies are all bright shiny newly-minted copper nirvana! They're beautiful! Woooo! An unexpected windfall for late International backers.
Although I'm definitely keeping some of them for myself. Heh heh heh.
Creator Dave Howell on June 8, 2012
Eric Lund reminded me that I never answered his question. He'd made a mark on a PennyGem with a blue permanent marker, and, uh oh, unlike my video, he couldn't get the mark to completely disappear just by rubbing it. I suspect colored markers might 'stain' in a way that the black one won't. I don't actually *recommend* writing on your Gems with permanent marker, but if you do, and want to take the mark off again, you should find that the marker comes right off if you use alcohol as a solvent. I've used the same trick to write with perm. marker on white boards and my refrigerator. I keep a bottle of 'rubbing' alcohol (70% isopropyl) around the house for that very reason: as my first-line option for cleaning up stuff that won't come away with soap and water. It's a nice 'safe' solvent. There's a pretty good chance that vodka or some other fairly strong liquor will work as well.
Creator Dave Howell on June 8, 2012
Oh, and speaking of printing, there's been a fairly dramatic change in how the regular gem sheets are printed which hopefully won't inconvenience anybody, but will be very obvious to anybody who saw earlier versions. And it's Julia's fault, by the way. When she was helping me work on the sheets, she commented that the black column had the most defective labels. I replied that it was because it was the first row on each sheet that I domed, and so I was more likely to not have the positioning quite right.
{slap forehead} Doming errors will tend to occur in columns, so having the colors in columns means that I'll tend to have the same dysfunction occur to an entire color at once, which makes them harder to replace. So now colors are placed diagonally down the page. It doesn't look *quite* as nifty, but since you have to peel them off the sheet to use them anyway, it's not like that's all that important.
Creator Dave Howell on June 8, 2012
@Beverly: Distribution: slice the sheet vertically. Reason for printing like that: made them print faster. The print head didn't have to go "left, right, left, right" for half the sheet, so the machine could just advance quickly to the bottom of the page, print the crop marks, then zip back to the top and start cutting the circles.
Creator Beverly Block on June 8, 2012
I'm curious about why the octarine gems were printed with the symbol sides on one half of the sheet with the blanks on the other. It makes distributing a split order a little tricky. Having them paired like the regular gems would've been easier.
Not that the gems aren't made of fabulous, of course! I'm just wondering if there was a reason.
Creator Ray Schmidt on June 7, 2012
Just got mine yesterday and I can't keep my hands off them. They are fantastic!! Thanks, Dave!!
Creator Dave Howell on June 7, 2012
And yes, the next obvious question is "What about the regular PennyGems?" http://ImpObj.com/Kickstarter/Avatar/0.gif http://ImpObj.com/Kickstarter/Avatar/1.gif http://ImpObj.com/Kickstarter/Avatar/2.gif http://ImpObj.com/Kickstarter/Avatar/3.gif http://ImpObj.com/Kickstarter/Avatar/4.gif http://ImpObj.com/Kickstarter/Avatar/5.gif http://ImpObj.com/Kickstarter/Avatar/6.gif http://ImpObj.com/Kickstarter/Avatar/7.gif
Creator Dave Howell on June 7, 2012
@Karl: You realize the original image file doesn't really resemble the Token all that much? Printing onto brushed silver vinyl changes the appearance rather drastically. However, see if this will work: http://ImpObj.com/Kickstarter/ToAAvatar.gif
Creator Karl R. Olson on June 7, 2012
Used them as style/fate points for Hollow Earth Expeditions, used them as sanity trackers in Miskatonic School for Girls (nice kickstarter synergy developing), used them in Lords of WaterDeep and tonight have been requested to bring them to quickly mark out a combat we're having in Classic Deadlands. Might have to try out a friends Quarriors game just to use them there too.
Any future colors, or sizes (nickle gems would work for me) would be in demand by me and those who play with me.
Dave: Any chance we can get the image file of the purpley side of the appreciation token here to use for avatars? Thanks again!
Creator Jan Hendriks de Geweldenaar on June 7, 2012
Got mine. Somehow 1 green and 1 yellow PennyGem lack a symbol, but the looks smashingly cool.
Creator Rusty Q. Shackleford on June 7, 2012
@K.C. There is no rule that you must wait patiently. You just must wait... And not annoying Dave about it. But yes, the waiting is killing those of us that were so slow to catch on, especially as we insist on reading these comments by other people posting about their preciouses!
Creator Roy Jones on June 7, 2012
Got mine! Love them!
Creator Justin Call on June 6, 2012
Just thought I'd chime in about this idea of a worry stone (a quartersized pennygem). At first I thought this was superfluous, but then I carried around my token of appreciation for a whole day, and boy, have I changed my mind. These are fun to touch! In fact. I think I lost my ToA in one of my shirt pockets because I didn't want to put it away. :(
[begin=geekrant]
I've also seen others posting what they are using their gems for, and I wanted to share, too. The first thing I did after assembling my gems (besides fondling them for two days straight) was toss a rainbow's worth of gems into my Small World box. For those that have played the game, you might notice how it's sometimes hard to immediately identify which race belongs to which player (because people change races as the game progresses). Some gamers have attempted to solve this by adding colored tokens or meeples to the board to distinguish which races belong to whom...but PennyGems are WAY better. :)
The second thing I did was sort out a bunch of yellow, blue, black, and white gems for an 15mm print-and-play Aliens vs Predator retheme of the iconic Space Hulk by Games Workshop. For those familiar with the game (and I realize many here probably aren't), I used the yellow gems as overwatch markers (for added coolness, the triangles match the laser scopes from the predator movies), the blue gems as guard tokens, and the black and white gems as psychic storms and force fields (respectively). It turned out perfectly since I'd handmade everything else but was missing those tokens...and they look beeeee-autiful!
[/end=geekrant]
Creator Kristen on June 5, 2012
@Beverly - cool looking bags! Thanks for the link. :-)
Creator K.C. Skedzielewski on June 5, 2012
Must wait patiently, Must wait Patiently....
Creator Beverly Block on June 5, 2012
My gems came right after I left for Origins, alas. Luckily I had a few from Dave as a thank you for being in the video, so I was able to share some of the PennyGem goodness with folks there.
I picked up a bag for them in the dealers' room. It's from Games by Gamers, and it's really well made and a great design. It basically opens into a fabric box. They're at http://gbgpublishing.com/index_files/Page1545.htm . I got the deluxe lotus, which I think could hold 120 gems easily.
Though I have to say Dave's rack for them looks way spiffy. Not having to sort them out every time would be handy.
Creator shadus on June 5, 2012
I received my gems yesterday and they are everything they are cracked up to be and more. My wife is satisfied repeated running her hand through the bin of them, she says they feel like treasure.
They have a great feel. It's the best product I didn't know I needed but now couldn't live without!
Hope to see some quarter gems (worry stones? as someone suggested below) or other available sizes... would be neat to have quarter, nickle, penny sizes for stacking purposes.
Creator Jessie Araujo on June 5, 2012
got mine yesterday, they're great thanks!
Creator Miles Matton on June 5, 2012
Just got my PennyGems yesterday, envelope got a bit mangled but they seem to all be in good shape. Now, to find that bit you had about how best to put them together :)
Creator Steven Horikoshi on June 2, 2012
I don't know why it took me so long to realize this, but the Full Spectrum package is perfect for the 2008 print of Acquire. Instead of putting the crappy cardboard tiles on the board, play the color pennygem that corresponds to the hotel. Non-affiliates use white. Put 11 pennygems where the hotel spaces are so you know how close it is to "too big to fail." The game ends pretty much ends anytime 41 tiles of one color are used.
Creator Eric Lund on June 2, 2012
I put a mark on the back of a zero-point PennyGem using a blue Sharpie permanent marker and the mark did not come off with some rubbing. It's dimmer, but it's still quite visible. Can you think of something I might use to clean off the remaining mark? What marker did you use in the video?
Creator Dave Howell on June 1, 2012
@Eric: As hinted elsewhere, I'm working on the bag option. I also decided to try bodging out some PennyGem tray prototypes a couple of nights ago. This is just a 'proof of concept' run, so it looks pretty dumb, but . . . http://impobj.com/kickstarter/gemtray1.jpg and http://impobj.com/kickstarter/gemtray2.jpg A 'real' version would have some kind of cover or lid, among many other things. Without felt, the grooves need to be 3/4" diameter. With felt, they should be 7/8". Now, there is *no*way* that I'm going to make these things myself. However, if I ever manage to get caught up enough to have a bit of spare time, I might see if I can find a woodworker/cabinetmaker/carpenter type person who would. If anybody wants to make their own in the meantime, I'll just say "drill press & Forstner bit."
Creator Dave Howell on June 1, 2012
@Mark: I'm lazy too, which is why i did NOT print single-color sheets. "Sniped them into rows of 8 or 16?" Once domed, the sheets are quite lumpy; it's rather difficult to cut them apart. Can't use a powered paper cutter, and even a straightedge is hard to hold steady. Thus, when I have to cut a full sheet apart for people who ordered the Sampler, I have to freehand slice each sheet separately. If I had to chop ALL the sheets into pieces it would take me HOURS. Horrible! And even if that were easy, then there's fulfillment. "Double rainbow. OK, throw two strips of silver, two of red, two of orange, two of green, two of blue, two of purple, two of black into the box." That's way more work than "Double Rainbow: throw four sheets into the box." My shipping room shelf has just five different 'items' to ship: full insignia sheets, partial insigia sheets, quartet sheets, chopped up full insignia sheets for Sampler and Super-sampler, and the octarine labels. If they were segregated by color, I'd have ten different stacks plus little tiny bits for the samplers. I work hard at not working hard. :)
Creator Marty and Ron Hale-Evans on June 1, 2012
[Marty] Opened the dryer yesterday to find some of Ron's clothes and a single orange PennyGem sitting on the edge of the door opening. Good as new after its adventure in the wash cycle, just as demonstrated in the video! :->