As most of you that have attended HERSHEY know, they give out commemorative woodie nickel's every year. Since the 2020 HERSHEY was cancelled, I decided to have the 2020 nickel's made on my own. These are exact copies of the nickel's that the A.A.C.A. gives out every year. On one side is a caricature of a Covid-19 virus and the slogan "Keeping HERSHEY Alive" and the date. On the reverse is "HERSHEY the Year That Wasn't" with the future dates, very similar to the nickel's that are given out every year. They were carefully researched and worded so there was no copyright infringement. Well, it really pissed off the A.A.C.A. and I received several phone calls from the A.A.C.A. brass. They refused to accept my ad for their magazine even though I'm a member and also took the ad down from their website. No one from the A.A.C.A. could give me an answer as to why. So if you want one and see me walking along with my "granny" cart with the "Wooden Nickel for sale sign, $1.00" stop me and you can purchase one.
Not really that funny when you consider how anal and uptight some of the A.A.C.A. are. They really can be first class assholes.
Some people get there nose in a knot over copy right stuff. My brother and a friend of ours had a shop years ago specializing in British stuff with a rolls logo Aston Martin logo and a Jaguar logo.on there sign above the shop. well, Jaguar sent a letter stating they had X amount of days to take down the logo or face litigation. So they did snd replaced it with another jag type logo. Nothing even close to the Jaguar leaper . But again they got a call to remove it. this was 2 guys in a two bay shop!!! I guess Jaguar felt pretty threatened by them !
Volkswagen went on a witch hunt some years ago, copyrighting anything and everything with "Bug" or "Beetle" in the line. They tried to sue a company called Bugcarts, but lost that one because Bugcarts had been around since the early 1950's and already copyrighted their name. I thing there was a similar fiasco with Toys R Us when they tried to copyright the R Us part. Gotta love the evil empires of Corporate America..
A long time ago when I Had my Shop in Astoria, Queens N.Y. I was a Corp. Reg. in 3 States. So no body could Copy the Name I was out for a Sunday Drive and Stoped in a Dinner and I had a Jacket that had the Name of my Business on it. And some Guy came up to me and asked if was related to another shop in a town near buy.! so I Decided to take a ride to check it out. So I Found The Owner an Nicely Told him to Change the Sign. or he would get a Letter from my Lawyer. Just my 3.5 cents Live Learn & Die a Fool
P. S. I am Back from a bad Sprain in my Back(lower) Sever Pain.! I am much better today than I was a couple of days ago. so I Missed alot of activity in a Month ago........................................................................! Just my 3.5 cents Live Learn & Die a Fool
A bunch of us have traded the HERSHEY wooden nickel's for years. If I have a year that someone needs, we do a swap or work something out. Here's the ironic part. One of the guy's that I sold a nickel to showed it to an A.A.C.A executive. The honcho called me about two months ago and wanted to purchase two nickels. I told him I was surprised that he wanted them. He asked why and I told him the story of the other big wigs refusing my ad's. He was pissed. He said he thought it was a great idea and wanted the names of the people that gave me grief. I sold him two and hope he showed it to the other pompous asses. It seems like everybody I sold a nickel to has a beef with the Hershey Region of the A.A.C.A.
Slightly OT, but similar situation. Years ago I had a Stearman bi plane T-Shirt design, advertised in an aviation magazine, the artwork was my own, from my own slide that I had shot, and the font of the word "Stearman", was a logo from the original company in 1927, in 1934, "Stearman" became part of BOEING ! I got a letter from Boeing legal department, that was a cease and desist order. As the conversation progressed, they also sent me a copy of all of the company's that Boeing bought or had absorbed. One of the company's was North American Aviation ( think in terms of a P-51 Mustang ). I had asked the Boeing lawyer, if they had any parts on the shelf for Boeing " Stearman Bi Planes ", they said no, the plane had been out of production for many decades, and I said, so whats the beef for me using a logo for something that isn't in production ? You know the drill, a lot of BS from a lawyer that had no clue what I was talking about. Then I said, by the way, the annual RENO air races, have a lot of P-51 Mustangs, that participate there each year, and the owners of the planes have a lot of custom jackets with the words " North American Aviation and P-51 Mustang " on them. As well as the older original NAA logo. I told the lawyer, that those owners and team members, have a lot of money invested in those planes and the racing program as well ! WOW ! What came next was a total surprise, the idiot lawyer for Boeing asked me if I wanted to go to work for Boeing, as a team member, to track down those owners of those P-51 Mustangs, in order to force cease and desist order's against those owners and team members to quit using those logo's ! I said, no way in hell would I ever do that, I also informed the lawyer, that you, yourself, may want to go to the RENO air races, and try to persuade those owners, but chances are, you will meet with some severe resistance and NOT in the form that you are used to ! I learned my lesson, "DO NOT ADVERTISE IN NATIONAL PUBLICATIONS " Just goes to show you how goofed up the world is today, in regards to a corporation or an association, trying to hassle anybody that is trying to do something cool, for NO big bucks ! What a shame that the A.A.C.A. was that up tight over a Wooden Nickle Token, especially if the event didn't happen in 2020. I hope @woodiewagon46 , that you sell out of those cool 2020 Wooden Nickles at the Hershey swap meet ! Great idea, " Spend a buck, get a Nickle back "
Yeah, but this is not a copyright issue. Nothing on the nickel states HERSHEY Region or A.A.C.A. One A.A.C.A. member that purchased a nickel told me that the A.A.C.A is all about money and if I offer a "kickback" they would have O.K. ed it.
Ford has been on a rampage for the last several years over use of their logos and, believe it or not, pictures of their vehicles, no matter how old! I used to use a site called Zazzle to make and sell car calendars for a couple of boards I'm on. Last time I did one for the Mustang and Ford car board, Zazzle wouldn't accept it for printing unless I joined a "Ford Enthusiast Group" that was officially licensed by Ford, and I had to sign an agreement to give them {Ford} ownership of any designs I came up with. I told them to fuck off. They were claiming Ford owned the rights to any pictures taken of anything Ford, no matter who took them or where they were taken at. Funny thing was, the other board has a lot of traditional hot rods and some street rods as well, and they never said a word about any of those pics! They accepted that calendar and I sold a few. I never made much on them, mostly enough to buy myself a couple for my own use. My avatar < is one of the shots I took and used to put my car on the calendars. Guess they didn't know Lincoln was a Ford product.....they never said a word about it.
I got a call from a guy that saw this posting and purchased a couple of nickel's from me. He told me he actually quit the A.A.C.A. because of the HERSHEY Region. He was a vendor at HERSHEY for over 20 years, same spot every year. A couple of years ago he sent in all his paperwork for the upcoming HERSHEY and did not here anything, even though all his friends did. When he called the A.A.C.A. they told him that he never sent in his info. After several phone calls he faxed them a copy of the cancelled check that the A.A.C.A. cashed. Even with that information they still refused to give him his old spot for the new year. He said, "everybody thinks that the A.A.C.A. is run by 80 year old, grey haired men". He went on to say no, "It's run by 80 year old, blue haired ladies, and the men do what they say".
No nickels were made. The order was canceled. If you saw a covid nickel it was a fake. Ask the fellow in charge we both know him.
This is really interesting now! Perhaps this is a great opportunity to see a picture of the of the 2021 covid nickel and a 2020 (alleged / so called fake) nickle !
These are mine. The 2021 nickel will be from the A.A.C.A. next week at HERSHEY. There were no nickels put out by the A.A.C.A. in 2020.