Apple employee challenge cards (2019–2021)

Apple challenge cards are sent to Apple employees who participate in company-sponsored events, usually with a gift to celebrate the accomplishment of successfully completing the challenge.

From left to right, the challenge cards include:

  • Let the good times roll.—Apple’s fifth Close Your Rings Challenge shipped with a set of black embroidered towels. (The black card measures 2.75 x 5 inches and is printed on light textured cardboard.)
  • Ready to tumble.—Apple’s Eat Well Challenge shipped with an Apple-branded tumbler. (The card measures 3 x 6 inches and is printed on light textured cardboard.)
  • Celebrate—shipped with a t-shirt. (The card measures 3 x 5 inches and is printed on light textured cardboard.)
  • Take comfort.—Apple’s Mindful Minute Challenge shipped with a limited-edition T-shirt. (The card measures 3 x 5 inches and is printed on light textured cardboard.)

Wooden pencil (white, red logotype, 1993)

Not to be confused with the Apple Pencil, this wooden Apple pencil is painted white and features the Apple logotype printed in Apple Garamond in bright red.

This product is featured on page 59 of the Spring 1993 Starting Line: Apple Marketing Communications Catalog. Its description reads:

Apple Pencil
Perfect for seminars, meetings, trade shows, and sales events, this item is the natural companion to Apple notepads. It’s the irresistible, old-fashioned, low-tech, number-two wooden-and-graphite pencil, complete with eraser and silkscreened Apple name in red. APL476

I was lucky to get about 30 of these pencils.

Educator Advantage pen (multicolor, black Apple logotype, c. 1990)

This pen is primarily yellow with purple, green, and red accents. The pen is printed in black in the Apple Garamond font, Apple’s corporate font at the time. The printing includes a black Apple logo, a black Apple logotype, and contact information for the Apple Educator Advantage Individual Purchase Program.

The Apple Educator Advantage Individual Purchase Program was a no-interest loan program offered by Apple for school staff in approximately the late 1990s–2000s. The program was executed by individual school districts as a payroll deduction for employees who were interested. Two of the school districts in which I served offered a version of this program.

(My collection includes the same pen, but printed with just a black Apple logotype.)