Quick Update

Just a quick update as to where we are up to.

Right now we are firmly in between batches 18 and 19. Batch 18 has been a real pain this time around, delayed first by Chinese New Year the ‘stragglers’ were further held by customs for a ridiculously long period. While most swords have been shipped out, the majority of the sword sets have been sent back to the forge by customs and will apparently need additional documentation (never happened quite like that before, but the procedures for importing blades in quantity are nebulous and change constantly). So we have had no choice but to comply, bite the bullet, and reship them back to Canada.

Anyway, I’m contacting these last few individuals personally after this blog post is finished to let them know and figure out our options.. Not fun I can tell you.. 🙁

Fortunately, things are looking a lot smoother for batch 19 (officially batched on the 11th of April). To help customers keep track of where we are up to I have changed the counter on the SBG custom sword page to count down until it is due (must admit, I think I am addicted to these counter things!)

I hope to be posting some photos of batch 19’s progress on this blog early next month. Naturally, we wont be taking new orders until batch 19 is completed and in transit, so for those who are waiting for another opportunity, for the time being the above counter is a rough guide.

Will post another update soon – as always if anyone has any concerns at all please contact me personally and I will get back to you asap.

– Paul

Back to business

Hey everyone,

Thanks for bearing with me while I have been away. I had a great trip, but right now have a fairly large number of emails to sort through which I should have addressed by the end of the weekend, so if you are waiting on a reply, please bear with me just a little bit while I sort it all out.

Anyway, for everyone who took advantage of the 5% delayed shipping discount – thanks for your business! All the orders will be processed over the weekend and should start moving next week accordingly. And just because the backlog and the fact that our affiliated warehouses are closed over the weekend and any orders placed until Sunday will not start top ship until next week too, I have extended the coupon code to work until midnight Sunday (USA eastern standard time).

In the meantime, because there are so many emails to go through if you have a matter of extreme urgency please email me again and I’ll get back to you as a priority.

Thanks for bearing with me – I’ll post again once the hubbub has calmed down a bit. 🙂

– Paul

Vacation Discount

Hi All,

Well, officially any orders placed from today will not ship until after I get back on the 25th. However, to make up for the inconvenience, while any orders placed now will not move quickly, you can save 5% by entering the coupon code May 2012 (or if you have trouble with the code for some reason, 133673915) and we will reduce the cost of your order by 5%.

Shipping of orders placed up to this point will continue as usual (updated by my assistant Karyn) and as mentioned earlier if you have any questions send me an email and I’ll do my best to get back to you.

Thanks for your understanding.

– Paul

Vacation from 15th to 25th of May

Hi everyone,

Just a quick update – as mentioned in the May issue of sword buyers digest online magazine I am taking a short trip back to Australia until the 25th of May, and as such an orders received after this Friday the 11th will not be processed until my return.

Orders can still be placed during this time, but will not be processed or shipped out until my return. During this period I will also have limited internet access, though will try to check my emails at least a couple of times to make sure nothing super urgent has come up.

My apologies for any inconvenience.

Thanks,

– Paul

Batch 18 swords – the stragglers

This post is specifically for people who ordered swords from batch 18 (batched and commenced by the forge on the 5th of December 2011) and haven’t emailed me about what is going on. While the vast majority of the swords cleared customs and have been shipped, I hate to say it but we still have a few stragglers that are still stuck in customs (grr) – and the majority of these are for Wakizashi, Tanto and sword sets (though there are still a few Katana).

It’s really quite frustrating as batch 18 is now coming up to 150 days since batching, so the last stragglers are some 60 days over the 90 day turnaround time we aim for. 🙁 However we should have the last ones clear customs within a week and my agent will ship them out as soon as possible, so while I hate to ask for it – please bear with us just a little longer.

Since I am making a quick post, I though I should also mention that batch 19 is coming along much faster – without Chinese New Year to get in the way, batch 19 is 100% on track and I’ll be making another post (and sending an email update) around the midway point. In the meantime, if anyone has any questions please email me and I’ll do my best to get back to you asap. – Paul