So, after a little bit of a war behind the scenes, we should have all remaining backers charged. You may have not gotten an attempted charge until today. This is your hard-earned money, let's talk about what happened here.
There are some interesting code quirks here that led to some goofiness in how fees and charges were applied. Shortest explanation possible, we had to add the $3 combined shipping service fee based on how backers answered two things: combined shipping status, and geographic location. This was all a manual back-end process that needed input from BackerKit staff over a weekend.
Some local pickup backers were incorrectly charged their service fee because (god forbid) they stated they lived in the US and not the foreign land of N/A. Semantics, man.
I didn't charge any additional backers after I got the tipoff about this, and I went through and handled everything manually late last night and this morning.
So, what do you need to actually know about this headache?
If you're an American but did NOT back THE HYENA FAMILY, make sure you did not get the $3 service charge.
If you're a European combined shipping backer, make sure you didn't get charged shipping OR the $3 service charge.
If you're a local pickup NY backer, make sure you did NOT get charged shipping OR the $3 service charge. If you were, I will be in touch shortly and we'll see how to get you that single Taco Bell taco back into your bank account.
If you're an Australian or Canadian THE HYENA FAMILY combined shipping backer, you should be in good shape.
If anything doesn't look right, you know where to contact me - [email protected]
After all that - we have 31 people whose cards failed. Go ahead and make sure you're not one of them, if you didn't get a notification late last night or this morning. The hard deadline for payment issues is August 20th - your pledge will be considered forfeitted after this date.
Now that that's over - let's talk pins.
I'm almost done with grading C3's pins. There's 15 designs left, from Secretarybird to Wolverine with a couple outliers done and undone thru the roster. I'm expecting most of them to get done by the end of tonight.
We're sitting at a fist-balling 37.8% average flaw rate so far. This, of course, is an average, and doesn't give a great big picture. The second half of pins we graded watching Jackass and Kenny vs Spenny had some outliers in the 60 and 90% numbers.
There are considerable issues with overfills, incomplete plating coverage, and what we call the "landlord's special." This means, dark colored hairs or fibers left in the pins and painted over with light enamel. B's are still sellable, but, they are a lot more flawed than I usually end up getting.
There are enough A-grade pins to fulfill pledges for every shippable design right now.
Key word, shippable. We have another unshippable design in the Lioness, who is missing an ear fill on her entire run. Like the Axolotl, this is a production error, and the right fill is present on the proof from the factory. She will need all 50 pins remade.
The Axolotl and Lioness pins will not be sent to backers in this state. Like with CRITTER CRIMES' dragon, we are going to do a swap-wait-free B choice for affected backers on these designs.
I'll send these emails out after all designs are graded in case another run comes up with 100% flaws.
Grading should ideally wrap tonight, and the first round of domestic C3-only orders can start going out. I will have all first-bracket orders done in the next 2-3 weeks. Tracking numbers might be 3-4 days ahead of actual shipping, but, if you get one, you're up.
Combined shipping backers are waiting on THE HYENA FAMILY. Whether you backed it or not, I recommend giving the latest update a look - these pins are absolutely stunning, and Henrieke is godlike about getting factory photos and updates.
We are, realistically, looking at 3 weeks to 1 month before Henrieke's first set of pins arrives to her.
I brought this up briefly in the last update, and it's why I'm pulling funds now - while I wait, I'd like combined shipping backer money to start paying rent in a 3.5% APR account, no matter how long it has to sit.
USA, Canada and Australia combined HYENA FAMILY backers will need to wait for pins to arrive, be graded, and get to the USA safe for shipping. European HYENA FAMILY backers will need to do similar - your items will be shipped to Henrieke for combined shipping out of Austria.
I'd budget 1-2 months if you are a combined shipping backer from either side of the pond, but, be ready for delays.
I appreciate you guys being patient with both halves of this collaboration. We've been dealing with a good bit of manufacturer delay - though, Henrieke's is just her factory taking their time for good product, and mine are busy playing Jenga instead of filling ears on lions.
Hoping to have an update by the end of this week for you guys with final grading numbers. I'm off to go work on that now.
Anyways, DOG CRIMES launches tomorrow at 1 PM EST. Let's get one single win this 2026, yeah?
