Because of the massive economic uncertainty we were all suddenly FLUNG into, my pin manufacturer put the paws on a rush order. While I am incredibly grateful for the consideration, it also makes me very nervous about quality when that happens, so I waited to update until I was able to grade all of the pins.
So, I have good news and bad news. The bad news is that there's around 1/3 of the order with epoxy coverage issues because the fulfillment was rushed. This is an example of what I mean:
These are some of the milder ones honestly
The worse news is that one of the colorways with this problem on almost all pins is Void/all-black. The most-ordered colorway.
The good news is that I negotiated remakes and they were approved. I have to pay for shipping but not the unit price. It's very obvious the last stages of production are where things went wrong, because the other stages (enamel, plating, glitter) are overwhelmingly great quality, with only a handful with issues there out of the whole order. I sent videos of the pins I wanted remade and they agreed to the quantities I proposed, because this shouldn't have happened.
There are some that have very small coverage issues that I'm still considering to be standards, because they can't be seen after about 1-2ft away from your face which falls well under my grading definition. The bad news again is that I am probably going to be tariffed on the remakes... and I won't be able to send out a large chunk of orders without those.
Taken a little bit over 1ft away, and you can probably tell (or not tell, rather) that there's practically no distinguishable issue. Without direct shining light and right in front of your face, these are great and don't have issues with anything else.
The 3 colorways with the highest flaw rate are: 1. Hot pink with white (88%) 2. Void (80%) 3. Siamese (60%)
The colorways with the least pins with this epoxy issue are: 1. Black with gold metal (0 flawed) 2-4 tied at 12%: Monochrome, Honeydew, Martian 5. Purple and black (15%)
That 2nd section and most other colorways can be fulfilled.
What this means for fulfillment is that, while the moths still await remakes, I will start sending out what paws I can - to Canada first because of the tariff situation and border uncertainties... but only after I have set aside EVERYTHING claimed for by backers already, so I will be waiting until after April 26th to fulfill so that I know what final counts people have locked into.
(I will update again April 24th to warn everyone of the pending charges! That's in just a few days!)
Also, as a side note, the arrangement of the paws on the sticker sheets is going to be slightly different compared to mockup. I made more room for the cutlines and also managed to somehow make each paw sticker a bit larger in the process, so these are both good things.
After everything is set aside, even though fulfillment of those won't be complete yet, I will need to sell seconds pin grab bags there since I won't have leftover standards for gacha pulls (yet). Every one of you still had access to many freebies and individual choice pins while convention attendees will not have access to those benefits, so I hope this is okay with you. I am unlikely to have my septum rings with me at this show so I am going to need all the help I can get with income.
Speaking of the septums... (backer update only below):
