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 previous schedule (brought to you by Dunkin' Donuts and a local tea shop)! We thankfully had some family help (shoutout to Mel's sister and mom), so with exactly 120 cumulative fulfilment hours over the weekend (plus hundreds of grading hours that is a horrific fever dream of endless b grades), we're happy to announce the first packages have been mailed! :D
This supervisor has approved this sendout.
We worked through about 180 packages (about 40%), and we may do a few more before needing to pause today. If you have a label, it should be dropped off already, or will be tonight (last of the domestics, international).
A small little feature is the gold seals! These are random!! If you find a full gold wax seal in your pack, feel free to email us with a photo of your packing slip + your seal together, and you'll be eligible for a free seconds pin from this campaign of your choice.
The gold seals look a bit like this, just with the three different guild logos.
Shipments will resume on return for the remaining 60% as Jess is returning to her place today, and Mel is pivoting into con prep. We're still awaiting some small remakes so when Mel is back, Mel & her sister will be handling everything up to what's impacted by those holds, but we're hoping we get those replacements within the late month. This mainly concerns a handful with Prince/King Lich (same manufacturer that caused the initial nightmare, same issues). (If you have these either of these two pins and don't get a label today and wish to swap to a different pin, feel free to message and I (Mel) can see if we have standards of other pins we can ship you.) - NOTE: We will announce when shipments are complete. Our target for finishing everything in between our convention schedule is roughly mid-April, with a remaining stock drop around then.
Shipping reminders & notes:
If there’s something wrong with your order, you have 30 days from delivery to contact us. If it gets lost/misdelivered/destroyed by the post demons, please follow the notes below, but contact us ASAP! Please allow for 1 week for domestic mailings (contact with issues no later than 30 days - all domestics are insured at a baseline); please allow 20 days for insured international mailings (contact for issues no later than 60 days).
One main change is that Mel did end up needing to take over the United Kingdom orders that Venetia initially had. Because of the huge issues with the manufacturer, what was intended initially on being a split wasn't feasible to split anymore since pins were rerouted to the States due to error rates. This ended up being more expensive per package for us, but still less than shipping everything over to the UK then re-shipping it out. We covered this price change internally.
Other insurance related notes:
All domestic packages had a baseline insurance of $50; and if you bought additional insurance I bumped it up according to the your package price.
International packages by default do not have insurance (are tracked to border); insurance was added on request, but I did bump packages up to insured when the difference was minimal
Packages with more than 18 pins were all insured by default.
If insured, we can handle claims within the window above! USPS, UPS and DHL are all very strict about these deadlines!
Customs are the responsibility of the client; please keep an eye on packages if you get a label! If it gets held, you will be contacted with the information you provided the system, but sometimes you can poke the customs demons to release it earlier electronically.
Other notes/clarifications:
Between everything, we are shipping several thousand pins with this campaign, and as such (especially with all the ridiculous error rates), there are multiple people helping with grading. We did our best to equalize the grading scale off of Mel's normal grading; we often rechecked pins more than once, but slip ups do happen. If something very obvious was missed, please just shoot us a message and we'll see what we can do. We are releasing the BEST of the pins we have available, no exceptions.
For the freebie D20, we did end up noting that it had a fair amount of oxidation that had occurred in the silver plating, which isn't an uncommon flaw in silver plated pins but also is something we'd normally grade down for. Due to the nature of the pin (as a free element) and the general severity (not awful), we graded specifically for scratches and underfills and really bad oxidation, but otherwise passed them.
Otherwise, things have been going fairly well in the grading and fulfilling department, and we're excited to see all of these little packages come together. A lot of the fun is having a "package" experience, so we hope you enjoy how we put things together!!
Finally - have some pictures of a cat being a supervisor while we were headed to drop things off:
With many kittens and too few braincells, Mel, Jess (& the cheerleading Venetia)
