Good afternoon, bird gang!

Quick one here, since the majority of fun stuff is gonna go to a CRITTER CRIMES update later tonight.

Factory remakes for our flawed GOLDEN AGE PARROTS pins (most importantly, our kakapo color correction) have shipped, and will be coming to the United States shortly.

If you're waiting on a tan beaked kakapo, this is going to be for you! All of these packages are sitting nice and pretty on my desk, waiting for pins to hit the States. I don't have a delivery estimate for them right now, but we're expecting 1-2 weeks.

Whiteface cockatiel stickers also got picked up at Anthrocon, and orders waiting on those will be going out as I gear up for CRITTER CRIMES' fulfillment this coming week.

Thank you for your patience - not ordering these was a mistake, on my part, and they should have come in the order for GAP.

As I said up there, CRITTER CRIMES' pins and stickers are now in, and we're going to start switching gears to get that project out to backers. GOLDEN AGE PARROTS is almost over, and you can probably expect one more update after all our fixed kakapos go to backers.

Before I get corporate: thank you for sticking with this project.

I enjoyed the art style and the nostalgia from GOLDEN AGE PARROTS, but there are a lot of things I wish I did differently. It's clear that there's some promise to doing GOLDEN AGE pins, but I picked a poor timing window and stretch goal format.

I'm throwing some ideas at the wall, for what to do for this year's final project. An overhauled, smaller GOLDEN AGE project is on the list, either with more birds or with friendly, familiar dog breeds. Who knows, yet? I want to get CRITTER CRIMES set, first.

This project hasn't really been a success, and it's not one I'm exceptionally proud of. I like a few pins, but ultimately, if they don't sell, I don't care. It's time to move on and figure out something else that works. Thank you for giving me the space to make mistakes, and learn from them, and thank you for holding me accountable when shit doesn't work.

Did you miss GOLDEN AGE PARROTS? All our stuff from this project is up and ready to ship on the retail store - KEN'S PIN HUSTLE. Check these beebies out!

Good evening, bird gang! I hope you've had a peaceful weekend. I sure haven't.

GAP pins are taking flight! By the end of tonight, 47% of GOLDEN AGE PARROTS will be either on porches, in the mail, or ready to drop off at the post office tomorrow.

Have you gotten yours, or a notification about yours yet? Chances are, if you're in the A-C part of the alphabet, your pins are either at your house, or will be Monday or Tuesday. D-K's are packed up and should start moving tomorrow afternoon. If you don't have tracking yet, or your tracking hasn't moved by tomorrow, feel free to reach out to me.

Sorry we don't have more out. A lot of you are named Elizabeth, Heather and Jennifer. Naming trends kill, people. Maybe give your kids real names, like Sephiroth or Michael the Dragon.

I'm going to go get a third coffee, and see how many more of these I can get out. There's a small chance we'll have all domestic orders marked for shipping by the end of tonight, so, if you're further down the alphabet and you get a notification, it's not an error. Otherwise, they'll start tomorrow.

We're going to have all GAP orders (without payment or item issues) out by the middle of this week. This includes international backers.

I have a bored friend who needs something to do now that the semester's over, so we're gonna crunch fulfillment in order to do a full shop inventory tomorrow. KEN'S PIN HUSTLE will have most items unavailable for up to a week.

That being said... it's not ALL items. I'll have something a little special set up :)

So, BlueSky followers and private Telegram huddle members know we've been having an adventure with b-grade pins. We are rocking far, far higher than average rates for defective stock. While this isn't OK, the factory has admitted fault and will be replacing all of the defective pins at no cost to me.

Shipping logistics in this brave new world of bullshit are still up in the air, but I do not need to send pins back. This means I have over 500 defective pins. Yay!

Starting tomorrow morning, I will have 40 $10 mystery 2" pins listed on the HUSTLE. This cost includes shipping, since I'm being cheap and slapping all these bad boys in normal letter mail.

After store inventory, B-grade 2" pins will be $12-13 depending on their flaw, so this is a good chance to get something cheap and fulfill your love for gambling without going into debt. I have B-grade stock of all 2" designs, so, you could get any bird!

Want to try your luck? I'll post the link tomorrow, along with what fulfillment progress I made tonight.

Let's check in tomorrow - enjoy the rest of your Sunday, and take it easy this week!

Good evening, bird gang!

I'm in the home stretch on pin grading right now, with 5 more 2" designs to go.

Grading has been a bit of a mess, but, not enough that it's required an update so far. Due to a lot of possible conditions, we've had some gnarly pin flaw rates. I am handling this privately with the factory, and I'll see how, if at all, I can get remakes into the country with tariffs without a huge hassle. Thanks for hanging in there.

Unfortunately, while doing #16 (the kakapo), I finally had enough light on in the office to realize that we have a color error with them. The 1" and 1.5" kakapo pins have the correct facial color, but the 2" uses the white eye color instead of the tan beak.

This is something I didn't notice until I turned my top light on and stopped being a vampire, but it's something I know you guys will notice if I try to ship them out this way.

It looks like, from the proofs I have, that this is a factory error. My artwork + the proof I received have the correct colors.

So, this leaves us in a frustrating spot, and it leaves me in a spot I need to explain more shit that sucks about the pin economy right now.

A lot of GAP's 1.5" and 2" pins have unusually high flaw rates. We are talking far above average, with flaws that are generally not common - visible metal contaminations, enamel drips, huge scratches, and even gouges.

This is not malicious, and should not be taken in that way. It means the factory was probably in a hurry to get things out before tariff and other economic issues got worse. The order was placed in early January, when the shitshow was beginning. This factory is generally above-average in their flaw rates, so this is difficult.

Most of the time, when things like this happen, the factory will offer to fully or partially remake the batch of pins. Sometimes, I'll cover this. Sometimes, they do, if it's egregious enough of an issue and it's clearly something caused on their end. Sometimes, they let you keep the defective pins, and other times they want them sent back.

None of this will make us exempt from tariffs to get replacements back into the country. Or... getting the defective ones back to China.

I haven't made a formal update about flaws yet, because I've had enough to fulfill pledges and I figure I'd just take the L and have my retail shit remade. But the kakapo is one of my more popular little guys, and there is not one pin in this batch with the correct colors.

I am going to withhold all pledges with a 2" KAKAPO PIN for now. I will reach out individually to you with options. You can either take the messed up little dude, or, you can wait until we get new ones in. And, currently, unfortunately, I don't know when or how that's going to happen. I'll also offer some discounted options to take the current mistake pin, with a coupon for the right color when they do get to me.

As a secondary note - did you order a whiteface cockatiel sticker? My mistake - I didn't!

I got a few emails about this. We did not order 1C or 2C pins because of a lack of sales... but they shouldn't have been chopped from the sticker order. If you are affected by this, I've been sitting on your email for a bit, because there are more of you than I thought. Expect to see a personalized response today.

This was my mistake, and I will be getting some limited stock of these guys in the sticker order I'm placing tomorrow. These may take a month or so to arrive, so, if you don't want to wait (I wouldn't, either), I'm good refunding your tiel.

I'm sorry for this miscommunication, and I'm ordering a flock of tiels to make it right.

I'm going to grab a mid-session coffee, finish up grading, and start buying the first round of shipping labels tonight. Don't be surprised if you get a notification - yes, your birds are going out!

Thank you for bearing with me through all this.

Good evening, bird gang!

This is an update bump from yesterday. Our entire run of 2" KAKAPO (#16) pins have a major color issue from a factory error, and I do not feel comfortable sending them out to our backers. There's a few options for you, if you got this pin, and I tossed each one of you an email.

Get back to me when you can. I know checking your email on a Sunday night sucks, so, now you're getting bad news on a Monday. Sorry about that, too.

A's are started in fulfillment, the first dozen went out last night. Another few are gonna go out tomorrow morning. If you're in the first few batches and get a pigeon, blue jay, toucan or crow in a baggie: they're A-grade, don't worry, I just haven't had time to sit down and grade them all yet.

Stay good this week. Thanks for being here.