Lets Talk COAs

To COA or not to COA?  Oh, of course, one question at a time, my bad!

Okay so the first question you asked, you did, I heard it, is what is a COA?

 

COA simply means certificate of authenticity.

 

 In some lines having, or not having one, can make or break a doll's worth. In other lines, they aren't offered at all and the dolls do just fine.

 

Over the years I have done numerous COAs. I am about to start off with one of my very first ones.

 The above COA was for my first doll line ever offered for sale called The Punkin Poos. Unfortunately I had to shut this line down due to conflict with OAA (Cabbage Patch) copyright laws. They were very nice about it, I must admit, and while I was served papers to cease and desist, around the same time I was offered a job there. I was honored but really wanted to keep creating on my own terms. Having to close the Punkin Poos ended up being the best thing ever for me. It gave me the push I needed as a new artist to branch out and find my own "nitch" Yay! I cannot express enough though how important learning about copyright law is!

 

 Alas I regress.....back to the COA. This one above was a paper one. My logo was designed by John Henson, a beyond talented artist whom also designed for the Broadway play Wicked among other famous plays etc. He also edited the poem I wrote for my COA at the time. I was so proud of my logo and COA. However, I still struggled with the thought of collectors having to worry about keeping track of their authentication paper. This led me to create a new type of COA. One that was not paper and one that could easily stay with the creation and not have to be stored separately with a chance of being lost.

 

Yep, you got it, the COA bracelet was born for my lines!

 

 Below are a couple of my past styles...

I created the all the graphics myself for all my COAs after the Punkin Poos. They are created on shrink film, o ring added, and then put on a bracelet or tied around the creation's wrist with ribbon. They could stay with baby all the time whoot whoot!

 

I wasn't too happy with the above two. Number one, they were very "blah" to me, they just didn't pop. Another problem was that I was able to fit the doll line logo on there but not my Tipsy Teacup logo.

 

So I tinkered a little bit more and came up with the ones below....

 

 

 

I was much happier with the scroll and stars but still just wasn't "there" yet. I still didn't have enough space for my Tipsy Teacup logo and this really annoyed me to no end.

 

So back to the drawing board for me. I created a few other styles that I failed to save and then finally came up with a larger tag using shapes that created more room for goodies to be put on as well as supporting my Tipsy Teacup theme.

 

Below are the tags I currently use....

 

While I am much happier with these current COA tags, I still feel some tinkering coming on. I really miss the stars so might try and see about incorporating them some how.

 

So, what do you think? Which is your favorite?

 

As always thank you for taking the time and sharing in my smiles here!