Full Seconds Sale - 6PM EST - Campaign Near Complete!
Hey friends! I hope you’re all having a great start to the weekend & the summer continues to go well for you. Thank you to everyone who has gotten their package and messaged or ...
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Alchemy Art
over 1 year ago
Update: Package Progress & Other Notes
Hey all! Wanted to stop in briefly with a (semi-short) update. I’m still working on fulfillment, and have been regularly sending out packages (thank you to everyone who has post...
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Alchemy Art
almost 2 years ago
Shipping Continued + Minor Delay for Residuals (Still Waiting on Last Remakes)
Hey friends! This is a short update just to keep everyone posted on progress. The short of it is that shipments are still undergoing and the Alchemy team is working on it still....
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Alchemy Art
almost 2 years ago
Shipping: Gold Seals, Progress, Final Remakes
Hey everyone! We apologize for almost updating a bit too much now, but Mel and Jess at the Alchemy HQ have been doing fulfillment for the last 3 days fairly nonstop, as per the ...
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Alchemy Art
about 2 years ago
Update: Shipping Lockdown (Final Notices Sent!)
Hey everyone! This is just a very short update that I sent out a courtesy lockdown notice through the system, which should have included the address your package is going to! If...
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Alchemy Art
about 2 years ago
Update: Production P6 & Upcoming Shipping Lockdown Notice
Hey friends! We really hope the beginning of the year has gone well for you! We’re here again to update on Purrtagonists events - so let’s get to it!
To start with a positive, ...
I backed this campaign for quite a few pins, I was patient when there were issues, waited for reprints, and reprints. Was asked to wait when they said stuff had shipped and mine didn't appear after months. It's now been years. Where's my pins?
Hey friends! I hope you’re all having a great start to the weekend & the summer continues to go well for you. Thank you to everyone who has gotten their package and messaged or shown us!! It’s a relief to see them in the wild after such a long journey. Also, forgive the hour, this took me like 4.5 hours to write. ;-;
First of all, fulfillment is just about finished for the campaign! We have 3.7% left of ALL orders (including preorders) left to do that are able to be done. We do have a few packages that are being held for some adjusted pin grades that left us short, and those people with impacted packages were already emailed.
As I’ve mentioned with every update: If you HAVE an address change, email it directly ASAP. Please don’t wait for a shipping label! By then, for these packages, it is too late to change in most instances. If you have an issue with a package (arrived damaged, got lost, etc), email it ASAP as well; I insured up to the value of items purchased when I could as a courtesy.
ALL stock is now allocatedand set aside (including standards going into held packages - we’re just awaiting the remakes then we’ll pack them)! That means, we’re clear to do a seconds sale as requested in the vote last update, and we’ve spent a few days just organizing and inventorying what we have available!
DURATION: Aug 2nd, 2024 6PM EST until August 13th, 2024, midnight EST
As voted last time, we’re doing a stock drop of just seconds* of all secondary-beta grades, and a percentage of all alpha grades. I will wait for the next drop for the majority of standards once the last packages with final remakes (noted above) are shipped. As such, the drop will not impact counts for any held items (or buffers for insurance).
Pins, as always, are hand-filled and hand-polished for hard enamel, so perfection is a dream, but not always a reality. I (Mel) grade using the following guidelines, which you may see in the drop since we had so many remakes (with varying flaw levels). Standard, of course, was what I aimed for in all preorder/crowdfunding pins, which were available at a discount.
Standard: Very small things are permissible (such as dust), but generally these are very solid pins without large errors. You will not see underfills, or scratches larger than 3mm in this category.
Standard-LOW: Light errors or bubbling (not in the face area) may be present, but the errors in this case are not noticeable without a bright light.
Secondary-Alpha: Small underfills, issues with the screens, and slightly more obvious scratches/bubbling can be present, and some small breaks in metal. No missing enamel or tarnishing or excessive metal breaks. Texture warping is permissible, if small.
Secondary-Beta: Larger underfills (not large sections) and visible metal breaks are allowed, though not common. Also can include: Texture warping, enamel miscoloring, tarnish, issues impacting facial areas, very VERY small missing enamel, frayed screens, misprinting, etc.
Anything more heinous than that, or a multitude of the listed potential errors in “Secondary-Beta”: c-grade bins they go!
NOTES:
Seconds are being sold at shows; thus, a few of the counts listed are short because (thank god) they have sold to some degree and helped recoup costs. Otherwise, we honestly couldn’t have afforded the remakes this campaign has incurred. We’re still sadly not close to breaking even yet, but it's now less daunting than the original figures we were staring at.
Basil, Nightshade and Moss will each have 15 standard pins available since they had a high initial standard rate and no remakes; all seconds have been consumed by conventions or are being held for them. For people on the hunt for a singular shipment, this is for you.
These are not promises on future stock. Because of insurance on packages and anticipated shipments, we are still holding some standards/standard-lows just in case. They MAY be released at a later date if they’re not needed, I may cycle them into con-stock, or they may be reserved for other things. As of yet, I don’t know the answer. In the “Highest Quality” Column, I tried to place the highest quality I knew, for certain, would eventually be available, assuming no restocks would exist in the future and insurance/buffer pins disappeared and were not added to stock.
THE INVENTORY CHART:
In the Standard Column: “Yes” means there absolutely will be standards. “S-Low” means that there likely will not be near-perfect standards, but “Standard-Low” pins will be available; Alpha means that “Secondary-Alpha” (very good seconds pins) will be available, but nothing in the Standard ranges.
In the “Seconds #” Column: Red means that under 10 exist. Orange is under 20. Green has more than 20.
For any orders placed, I will likely get to them after I return from my next convention mid-month. If you have any shipping-combination requests, I’m happy to do so, just email in the request and I’ll email you a confirm as applicable.
Some photos of some of the crazy packing for ... literally one of every pin lol:
Oops, glare.
If you have questions, it’s fastest to DM on Instagram or message in the pin channels of Alchemy’s Discord! (there is a delay to comment notifications in backerkit of about a day, so if there are drop related questions, I will not see it promptly)
Hey all! Wanted to stop in briefly with a (semi-short) update. I’m still working on fulfillment, and have been regularly sending out packages (thank you to everyone who has posted their packages arriving!!). It’s just been me and my sister working on this (when she can afford to come in - usually about once every 1.5-2 weeks), so it’s been tight on time as convention summer has ramped up and my time includes a lot of travel and convention prep (and I've kidnapped her as well for some busier events, lol). I’m out for about half of each month right now, with the rest of the month a mix of various packing and more prep… but packages are happening!
I’ve included a short poll with this update. With the info below, would you rather we opened up a small online seconds sale (i.e., for pins not used for fulfillment, but are sold at cons to recoup costs), or just wait until everything is done (this may mean that there are relatively few seconds of some items depending on when the drop ends up being)? The number of standards would not be impacted by the answer here - as these aren’t being sold, period, currently - but there are some pins that standards basically don't exist after fulfillment. I would still handle these requests after the end of the main cycle of fulfillment, but would allow people to pick up things in less of a rush. Or, it can be all at once. Either or is ultimately fine.
All said, here’s where we sit:
We are just over 80% complete now with packages! The remaining <20% is a mix of both big and small packages, and, in the last month, we’ve done a fair bit of pre-sorting to make packaging easier where almost all packing slips have pins pre-allocated. With grading largely finished outside of an oddball smattering, the largest part of the time commitment is currently just unbacking pins, assembling them on cards, packing them and getting them secured.
We did not manage to work out a resolution with the original manufacturer for Venetia’s pins, so we’re basically out the cost of all of those defective pins. Obviously none of these pins are ones we’ll use for fulfillment, and I had them remade on my dime while trying to recoup funds at shows and small seconds sales. The whole thing was and is an unfortunate situation; we have however made some of that money back through the last small seconds sale and convention seconds being sold.
The initial plans for Jess to come up mentioned in the last update fell through due to life hectic-ness, so my sister and I have had more sporadic packing days when time has allowed. As such, we didn’t have a drop of standards quite yet.
As mentioned in previous updates, once you get a tracking label, that means the package is fully prepared and about to be dropped off.
Other reminders:
If you’re international and get a label, that means it is going out within the next shipment cycle (usually within a week). Please watch customs! Domestics are dropped off within 1-2 days after label generation.
All domestic packages have automatic insurance; all packages that requested additional insurance on top of that had insurance added in addition (and/or were placed on Priority packages instead). If you have an issue with a package, please make sure to contact me within enough time to process claims.
Turn in your gold stamps y’all!
If you have an address change and have not gotten a label, you're welcome to email in. If I can change it, I will - [email protected].
As always, thank you so much for the patience and love for the project,
Hey friends! This is a short update just to keep everyone posted on progress. The short of it is that shipments are still undergoing and the Alchemy team is working on it still. We appreciate your patience while we work through everything!
More detailed info:
Right now, we stand at about 63% done with packages. We've started hitting some of the massive packages; we timed one of the bigger packages and assembling it (not counting grading time) took about 29 minutes just to punch the pins into cards, sleeve them, get them into the assembled box, write up the clearances and tape/label the box. As such, we slowed down a fair bit from the initial while starting to handle these. (It's just Mel and her sis working on these, currently.)
We are dancing timewise a bit between spring cons - each show itself is about a week since there's setup and travel, plus any time needed to prep for the show itself. In the last 5.5 weeks since the last update, there were two shows, so the remaining 2.5ish weeks of time we've done as much as we could (alongside finishing other shop tasks like pin club, braving business tax season, working with manufs for other ongoing designs - always a lot going on).
Almost all of the truly terrible pins have been graded; what remains are the better (and/or remake) ones that were delayed while wading through the (literal) thousands of bad pins. This is concurrent with packing.
We're still waiting on the Prince/King Lich remakes that were mentioned in the last update, but anything else outstanding has arrived with us. We're hoping that this is the last of the remakes we need.
Remaining timeline:
Jess is scheduled to come up for a last day or two of fulfilment toward the end of the month, and Mel is hoping to have around 80% done before that happens. There are still a lot of big packages hanging out, so we're wanting to get those out the door if possible, but that may make it seem slower progress wise while we handle those.
The original anticipated date for the standards drop may be toward the end of the month now coinciding with Jess coming up. We'll follow up again before it happens via an update (so if Mel doesn't update, it hasn't happened yet).
Because of how we're going through items, we cannot tell you where you fall in the lineup. Grading fatigue is a real thing (you stop seeing errors if you grade too long, and also give yourself bad headaches pretty easily if you're not careful), so Mel is grading in sections then packaging. We're doing our best to start as many packages as space allows so not all big packages are at the end.
Last reminder:
If you have an address change and have not gotten a label, you're welcome to email in. If Mel can change it, she will - [email protected].
If you have further questions, feel free to drop them below or in Discord, and Mel will answer as soon as she can.
