Production Update - Getting Close!
over 2 years ago
– Fri, Jun 17, 2022 at 08:38:42 PM
Hey Everyone,
We heard from the freight company. The boat containing the Red Rising Decks should be arriving at the LA Ports on Saturday! The LA Ports are the bottleneck, so hopefully our boat is offloaded in a good timeframe (a separate project of mine took 3 weeks for the LA Ports to offload it’s contents). After we do get offloaded in LA, the pallets will travel to Chicago via freight train, and then they’ll load them onto a truck to drive down and deliver to my house in the Indianapolis area. My bet would be a mid-July delivery.
So, to give me time to prep the Excel files for fulfillment, I’m going to Lockdown the BackerKits on Tuesday, July 5th. There’s still a little over 100 Backers that need Shipping Addresses assigned. If you are one of those Backers, please send me a Kickstarter PM (or e-mail to [email protected]) with your Shipping Address. I’ll add it into your BackerKit.
Great news! All of the items that Legends did not produce are finished and at my house! Those items include the House Mars Dealer Coin, The Society Dealer Coin, Pierce Brown signed Stickers for the Gilded Sets, Bookmarks and Holographic Cards.
The Pierce Brown signed Stickers have literally been around the world!! China customs finally released just a week ago. Legends quickly sent them to my house, via DHL. They arrived at my house on Thursday! I’ll be adding the Stickers to all of the Gilded Decks, once the Legends’ pallets arrive (hopefully mid-July or sooner).
The House Mars Coin turned out beautifully! They’ll make for a great Dealer Coin for a round of Red Rising themed Poker. Or just to display!
Below are some quick photos I took of the House Mars Coin and well-travelled Stickers.
Thanks, Randy
Red Rising PRODUCTION UPDATE
over 2 years ago
– Fri, May 13, 2022 at 08:03:35 PM
Hey Everyone,
Great news. The Red Rising Decks are officially on the slow boat and on the way to the U.S.!!
If I were to say this production has been a challenge, it would be an understatement. All of Legends’ items (Decks, Brick Boxes, 2-Deck Box, Gilding) have been finished for a little over a week. We waited to see if the Pierce Brown signed Stickers would be released from customs and arrive at the printer, but they still have yet to move on past Guangzhou. Joel, PB and I made the unanimous decision to get everything on the slow boat now, and figure out the Stickers later!
It’s not optimal, but if you’ve seen footage of some areas in China’s Covid lockdown, you probably understand. It’s pretty obvious that shipping packages is not a big priority in mega cities like Guangzhou right now.
When the slow boat Legends items arrive at my house in 8-10 weeks, I will immediately add all of the Pierce Brown signed Stickers to the Gilded Decks.
Legends sent us one of each finished Deck, 2-Deck Box and Brick Box. They all turned out beautifully! I’m extremely happy with the quality, and the 2-Deck Box is so cool in person. Also, The Society Dealer Coins arrived last week. That is perfect as well! I was worried that some of the fine details in some of the color symbols would have problems with the Enamel, but they’re as sharp as can be.
Below are photos of all the newly finished Legends items and The Society Coin. I can’t wait for all of you to see them in person!
The House Mars Dealer Coin is the only item that’s still in production. It should be finished in a couple weeks. So in summation, everything is taking longer than usual, but the quality of the finished pieces are top notch.
Thanks, Randy
Red Rising PRODUCTION UPDATE
over 2 years ago
– Wed, Apr 20, 2022 at 11:53:31 PM
Hey Everyone,
This is a production progress report / update.
The bad news is we’ve had a few setbacks that were out of our control (details below). These setbacks have put the timeline schedule behind, so it looks like fulfillment won’t happen until late June or sometime in July. The Jackal is trying to interfere with our work!
Setback #1 is the Legends printer had to shutdown for a couple weeks during a Covid surge in their province. They’re back on track now, and almost finished with everything. The Decks are printed and most of the Gilding is finished. They’re finishing up the custom Brick Boxes and 2-Deck Boxes this week.
Setback #2 is getting the Pierce Brown signed Stickers to the printer. Luck would have it, the Covid surge happened when we were ready to ship the Stickers to China. DHL, FedEx and UPS all wouldn’t ship to the printer’s province. We were able to ship them via USPS Priority Express International (Tracking Number EH026588779US). It was going slowly, but smoothly, until it was held in China customs on April 13th. The printer is working on getting the package out of customs, so they can add them to the Gilded Decks. The good news is Legends let me know that a lot of packages are being held up right now, because of short staffing (and not problems with customs). Hopefully they’ll get them soon! If they get them soon, the finished Decks, Brick Boxes and Gilded Decks should leave on the slow boat in a week or two.
That brings us to potential Setback #3 - slow boat shipping timeline. I printed some self-funded Decks at the beginning of the year with Legends’ China printer. Those Decks left on the slow boat on February 1st. They just arrived at my house yesterday! The bottleneck was the LA Ports. The pallet of Decks were stuck on a boat for weeks, waiting for their turn to be offloaded. 11 weeks in total, from printer to my house. That’s our baseline with the Red Rising Decks. Hopefully we have more luck when the Red Rising pallets arrive at the LA Ports!
The rest of the items are all going well so far. The Bookmarks arrived at my house last weekend. They turned out beautifully! The Holographic Cards should be at my house in a week or two. And the Dealer Coins should be finished sometime in May.
I’ve included some photos of various items and a screenshot of the Tracking History for the Pierce Brown signed Stickers. I snapped a couple shots of the Bookmarks, and Legends sent a few shots of the Brick Box and 2-Deck Box.
I’m in contact with Legends almost daily, trying to get everything on track. We’ll keep the BackerKits open for a while still. If you’re an Apple ID Backer, please send me a shipping address to add with your info (if you haven’t already). I’ll post another Update as soon as I know the Decks are on the slow boat.
Thank you,
Randy
BackerKit Update
over 2 years ago
– Thu, Mar 24, 2022 at 07:05:30 PM
Hey Everyone,
It looks like there’s a small percentage of Backers who are having problems with BackerKit recognizing their e-mail addresses (mostly Apple ID e-mails).
If you’re having a problem getting into your BackerKit survey, please send me the shipping address for your package via a Kickstarter PM or my e-mail address at [email protected].
I’ll manually add the address to your BackerKit survey.
Thanks, Randy
Red Rising BackerKits!
over 2 years ago
– Tue, Mar 22, 2022 at 10:20:05 PM
Hey Everyone,
Good news. The Red Rising BackerKits are all sent out!
Please fill them out when you get a chance. To limit the number of last minute address changes, I always wait to lockdown the BackerKits until a couple weeks before it looks like the Decks will arrive at my house. The BackerKit lockdown entails locking shipping addresses and charging credit cards for any Add-On items added solely within BackerKit (items that weren’t already paid for within Kickstarter). So, hopefully, we’ll be locking down the Red Rising BackerKits around late May.
That brings me to a question I’ve seen quite a bit the last couple weeks - when will the Decks ship to Backers? The Decks always have the longest production timeline. We’ve kept the production with Legends running since day one of the Kickstarter launch, so we’re in great shape with print timing. It’s shipping that may tie us up.
Our biggest bottleneck of this project will be the slow boat shipping from China to the U.S. Back when we were planning the timeline and setting up the Kickstarter project (December), slow boat shipping was an issue. It was no where near as slow as it is now - just a few months later!
My hope is all of the Decks will arrive at my house around late May - mid-June. I’ll start shipping to Backers as soon as they arrive.
Below is a brief synopsis of where we’re at with every element with this project (and estimated timelines).
HOUSE MARS DECK, RED RISING DECK, CUSTOM BRICK BOX, 2DECK BOX & GILDED DECKS:
All of these items start printing this week with Legends! Legends is also Gilding the Decks. Should take 2-3 weeks for them to finish everything. Then it all leaves on the slow boat from China to the U.S. With overseas shipping as it is now, it could take anywhere from 6-10 weeks to arrive at my house in Indianapolis.
SIGNED & NUMBERED STICKERS FOR GILDED DECKS:
Pierce Brown has them all signed and ready to go!! They should be with the Legends printer sometime next week. Legends will manually add each Sticker to the Gilded Decks, before wrapping them in cellophane.
HOLOGRAPHIC CARDS:
Ordering from MPC next week. Will take around 4 weeks to produce and arrive at my house.
BOOKMARKS:
Ordering from the printer next week. Will take around 1 week to produce and arrive at my house.
THE SOCIETY & HOUSE MARS DEALER COINS:
Ordering in two weeks, after we have a good idea of how many we’ll need for each design. Should take 4 weeks to produce and arrive at my house.
ULINE SHIPPING SUPPLIES:
Ordering in a month or so. They arrive within 1-2 days.
In case you haven’t received a BackerKit invite, below is a Direct Link to our BackerKit:
https://redrising.backerkit.com
Thanks, Randy
