This is probably one of the biggest things. So, earlier last year I had mentioned that my old manufacturer took my money (around $3,000), refused to make my pins, and then ghosted me. They did not make any of my pins after I paid them and stopped responding. I've been fighting behind the scenes because Paypal denied my claim and I've been dealing with my bank instead for the past 2 months. This isn't really anything that the backer really needs to know so I'm not going to bore you guys with the details, but essentially once they saw me initiate a chargeback, they refused to release my molds (the molds that are used to make enamel pins) that I legally own (the factory does NOT own my molds, they are mine because I paid for them). Because I am in the US and they are in China, there's no way for me to hold this up legally. So they now held my molds, this is particularly concerning because it's also the easiest way to make bootlegs of my pins and with how unprofessional this company is - I do think that I am at some risk of them either selling my molds to another factory to make bootlegs, or making bootlegs themselves. In the case that you see any of my designs sold in mass end up on anywhere OTHER than my own official sites, please report them! They are not being sold by me.
But anyways, also because of this, I had to remake some pins from before from scratch (like Floral Sumi, Joker, Black Crow, and Violet - i have yet to remake Floral Aigis). This meant that between the two factories there is this discrepancy, notably that the facial features for the new factory is thinner which is actually good for the new Persona pins because it means that the features are finer. But for those of you who own previous ones (this is ONLY for Violet, Joker, Black Crow, and Floral Sumire) there is a slight discrepancy between the new version and old version.
The new one is on the left (<-) the one I'm holding with a finger on it. The colors are also a bit more different because all of these colors are hand-mixed, so there is a slight discrepancy between the two, but I actually prefer the new pins. I did want to point this out in the case that any of you were confused by this and I wanted to communicate this sooner than later.
So with this being said:
Some orders will be shipped soon. Not all pins have arrived, if your order is charged, your order is scheduled to ship soon. Please feel free to reach out to me privately through [email protected] if you would like to pay for some items to be shipped first and I can see if I can split your order up (this depends on what you've ordered and you will need to pay for shipping twice if you'd like to split it in in-stock items and out-of-stock items).
The pins that have not arrived are being held with my manufacturer for some other pins to be completed. I estimate that this will be received in maybe a month due to some issues with production with my Futaba pins, remade Joker pins, and some other pins for my other project.
Jack Frost latte pins will not have backing cards due to me not having the physical capacity to package freebies right now, I'm really sorry. I'm severely over-worked right now and can't expend the extra energy since I have so many other designs to go through. They will come in the little zip-lock baggies. All other pins will be packaged. So far I've only done some of Ryuji and Yusuke.
The Jack Frost latte pins will come without backing cards in the baggies that they arrived in from the manufacturer.
I've packaged some Ryuji and Yusukes, but there's still a lot of other pins that need my attention.
If I have time I will take some better photos of them in natural lighting, thank you for your patience!
