Good evening, criminals! It's almost the weekend, hang tight.
So, it wouldn't be a KEN'S PIN HUSTLE project without some deeply unfortunate, pain-in-the-ass problem.
The TL;DR...
There's a serious manufacturer error on our ARSON DRAGON pins, the current shipping climate means getting fixes is going to be damn near impossible, and I am shipping them as-is and comping backers with a free pin.
During grading, I noticed that there was an out-of-place horizontal line all across the lower half of the dragon pin's artwork. This is, as we can see in campaign art and stickers, not supposed to be there.
So, I downed a couple coffees and went digging. The long and short of it, is that, proofs on my end don't have this, and it was a serious vectoring error on my factory's side. I want to apologize for this, and I want to clarify, this is not from any sort of AI "misstep" creating artworks - it's probably a vector line that wasn't trimmed right.
Mold making and pin manufacturing means this is going to be a difficult, expensive fix, and one I may not reasonably be able to ask for. And, as we all know, with de minimis being removed, and the tariff reprieve expiring, it could be an equally-messy situation to get any replacement pins into the country.
Dragons were a CREATE A CRIMINAL tier, so after getting some input from friends, the first place I went was to their sponsor. He wasn't too bothered by the defect, and doesn't think it's worth remaking them.
We are going to ship ARSON DRAGON pins as-is to backers. If you backed for a dragon, you are entitled to a FREE b-grade pin of choice on top of your fiery little fuckup.
Grading and packing is going to continue, and I'm going to take my lunch break and reach out to all dragon-purchasing pledges this weekend. My CRIMES b-grades are $8-10 depending on their quality, and, silver lining, this batch of pins seems to have very very minor defects for b's.
I may or may not hit mold costs for a revised, line-free dragon once the economy picks up its pieces, everything is up in the air right now. I'm sorry about this.
Fulfillment is continuing behind the scenes. If you're a dragon backer, expect an email from me soon.
