Ken Fiskorne
CREATOR
Invested in BackerKit’s future during our Wefunder campaign
🧙
Group-Collab Leader
3 days ago
Project Update: WE JUST KEEP WINNING!
Good afternoon, gang!
Grading has started. Let's not beat around the bush, it is not looking good. All of our freebies, promos, and giant pins are quality checked. Then, standard 1.5" coins African Wild Dog thru Blue Jay.
We're seeing B-grade rates on average about 30%, and for one pin, as high as 58%. We aren't talking small issues, either - entire batches have metal issues caused by mold errors, huge drips of paint baked onto the wrong areas of the pin, or underfills that affect whole designs.
Grading has started. Let's not beat around the bush, it is not looking good. All of our freebies, promos, and giant pins are quality checked. Then, standard 1.5" coins African Wild Dog thru Blue Jay.
We're seeing B-grade rates on average about 30%, and for one pin, as high as 58%. We aren't talking small issues, either - entire batches have metal issues caused by mold errors, huge drips of paint baked onto the wrong areas of the pin, or underfills that affect whole designs.
These are serious QA issues that are on the shittier side of my normal HUSTLE b-grades - most of what I'll sell as B-stock is rarely visible unless you're actively looking for problems.
I could write an essay about this, how it happens in the process of production, how frustrating it is, but I'm going to spare you guys most of it.
What's important, is that, I am not tolerating this from this factory again. B-grades have been usable enough for a bit that I can handle it, and I took a risk trusting them with what I thought were much simpler pins to manufacture.
This is the last set of new pins I will be ordering from this company. Both upcoming projects are already in the hands of different factories.
How does this affect C3?
- No standard pins, at this time, are short on numbers. I have enough A's of everything I've opened so far to get you guys your stuff. There's a lot of B's, but, they'll find homes eventually.
- There may be extremely limited retail numbers of some A-grade C3 coins until remakes come in.
- At this time there is one pin that is 100% defective (Axolotl).
- I am going to hold off on saying, for sure, that that's the only one.
- Backers whose orders might be held up due to unshippable designs will be contacted at the end with options. We know for sure about the Axolotl, but I'll be doing the usual "replace, store credit, wait" song and dance with any pins I can't send out in good conscience.
- I can't honor promo pin swap requests. I do not have enough A-grade pins to offer this without screwing over people who earned the A-grades. If you asked me for a shiny alt on a pin you bought, you will receive the antique version. The Early Bird and Night Owl will be most affected by this. If you are happy to take a B-grade, hit me up, and you can help give a few little fuckups good homes right off the bat.
This is extremely disappointing and frustrating for both of us, and if you have any questions or concerns, please let me know here or hit me at [email protected]. I will try to get back to you as soon as I can.
My priority is to get the rest of C3's pins graded and issues documented to start requesting remakes from the factory as soon as possible. I might be a little quiet for a week or two while I speedrun the rest of these little bundles of joy.
Which, is like, awesome. Because we're still launching DOG CRIMES in 9 days. But, we'll make it work, we always do. It just sucks you have to keep putting up with this.
I'm going to go try and get a few more 50-tops of pins graded before my evening shift tonight. Thanks for being here.
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