I try my best to only procure swag that was actually distributed by the company at time of operation. As an example, you can buy "joke" Enron t-shirts, which I wouldn't be interested in, but some authentic team building event-specific shirt distributed to 50ish people? Oh baby, I'm all ears.
I think that's part of the fun, hunting for the original stuff.
Former Enron employee here - I have some swag I was given when I first started (lunch kit, values booklet, etc. Also have some golf shirts and baseball caps.
> Would you be interested in an unreleased "Cosby Show" lego set that was supposed to come out right before he got cancelled?
Can't tell if serious. If serious, was this out of Lego Ideas (Cuusoo)? [I worked on the Back to the Future DeLorean set with the designers in Denmark]
I'm sure it was unintentional, but your comment here is where the thread went haywire. Maybe it would be helpful to explain why.
The discussion about disgraced-public-figure memorabilia was certainly offtopic, but it was offtopic in a whimsical and unpredictable way. That's ok on HN because it's interesting. What's not interesting, and is the bad kind of offtopicness, is turning the thread into a generic argument about some inflammatory thing that has already had countless flamewars. If you review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html, you'll see that we have several rules that are intended to act as flame retardant against this kind of thing:
"Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents."
"Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith."
"Please don't pick the most provocative thing in an article or post to complain about in the thread. Find something interesting to respond to instead."
The high-indignation, high-repetition flamewar topics are like black holes that suck in threads that swerve too close to them. Since they're so repetitive (and generally so nasty), they're definitely not what HN is for, so we should all try to steer clear of them.
Not to put words in OP’s mouth, but I think they were using “cancel” descriptively, not pejoratively. I don’t think there was a suggestion he didn’t deserve to be cancelled, just that he was.
It's my fault for not being more clear with my language.
But I actually meant "literally" cancelled. The Lego set was planned to come out with an actual REBOOT of the Cosby Show, which was cancelled in the traditional meaning of the word, like the TV did not go to air.
> Not to put words in OP’s mouth, but I think they were using “cancel” descriptively, not pejoratively.
If that was the intent, it was a pretty big mistake to use “before he got cancelled” instead of “before the show got cancelled”. The former construct in modern usage is pretty exclusively used for pejorative references to actions attributed to “cancel culture”.
“Canceling” means removal of support and denouncement of a public figure, justified or not. In Bill Cosby’s case, it was absolutely justified, as he himself admitted to his wrongdoings. What issue do you have with that term being used to describe what happened?
I can only speak for myself but I can't say I've ever seen anyone talk about someone having been "canceled" unless they objected to the person losing their stature or were making a joke.
Have you missed the entire #MeToo movement? Because people were cheering themselves on for (justifiably) canceling Harvey Weinstein using that exact same word to refer to the actions taken against him.
> As an example, you can buy "joke" Enron t-shirts, which I wouldn't be interested in
I would not be interested in authentic Theranos swag, but I would pay a lot for a new knockoff mock turtleneck with the old MPlayer logo on it. Now I can't even find the old MPlayer logo anymore.
Other people have commented, but I'd also enjoy a post or album of your most prized dead company swag artifacts.
I worked for a "hot" a16z startup just out of college, with a trendy office and the :rocket: :moon: vibe. They went under a few years after I bailed, but I still wear the t-shirt because it makes me chuckle.
In a strange twist of fate, I decided to exercise my few options, and I had to mail my stock exercise notice to some place with a check for ~$2500 to purchase them. USPS lost the letter and saved me $2500.
Just out of curiosity, how does one prove provenance?
I’d think the only way is to be the original owner (ie proof of employment at the company), but even then, given such a hot marketplace it would be super easy to just purchase and resell knockoffs.
But with art there is only one work produced by an artist, or if a series, probably some way to properly id it based on a number of factors.
With say a sweatshirt produced by a third party based on some digital stencil art, do you know for sure the one you're receiving was printed by the company and given to an employee/customer? Literally hundreds, possibly thousands would be in circulation. How would you be able to distinguish that from say something a former employee w/ access to the original art data having it reprinted?
I assume you could buy the stuff from the company's bankruptcy auction or when it gets auctioned off by the Feds like in the case of Martin Shkreli's exclusive Wu Tang album.
