Ronin wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2024 7:29 pm I hear ya, Val. As much as I complain, I know all of you in Canada, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand have it far worse between shipping and import taxes.

Minor anecdote here but I bought a couple of Seiko watches directly from Japan through Buyee which is their proxy shipping service. The two watches were bought separately and shipped to the Buyee warehouse where they are then shipped to me. I decided to save a few bucks by consolidating the shipping rather than ship each watch on their own to me. Welp, unbeknownst to me that put the import value of the package over the non-tax threshold of $800. So what I saved in shipping, I paid multiple times in import duty. I bring this up because it got me thinking if I had to pay an import duty on every item I bought from an international seller regardless of how low the price is, I wouldn't make half of the purchases I do. It's really gotten crazy.

I returned an item to Weta earlier this year and had to pay duty for entry into New Zealand even though I didn't pay U.S. customs duty when I received it. I don't want to get into customs tax law but, it's ridiculous to have to pay to RETURN an item to its country of origin.

Ronin wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2024 5:42 pm I'm curious as to how much of an increase in shipping it would be to have the bow made into two pieces vs one. Are we talking double, or triple the price compared to say a sword?

Valkrist wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2024 9:52 pm I think the shields manage to squeak by because one of those three numbers is actually small? Same for the staves.

XerachCruz wrote: I see that messengers are pirates in more places than in my country. It's sad.

Many times I have also been charged more at the door for some arbitrary concept than for what the item costs.

Ronin wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2024 7:29 pm I hear ya, Val. As much as I complain, I know all of you in Canada, Europe, and Australia/New Zealand have it far worse between shipping and import taxes.

Minor anecdote here but I bought a couple of Seiko watches directly from Japan through Buyee which is their proxy shipping service. The two watches were bought separately and shipped to the Buyee warehouse where they are then shipped to me. I decided to save a few bucks by consolidating the shipping rather than ship each watch on their own to me. Welp, unbeknownst to me that put the import value of the package over the non-tax threshold of $800. So what I saved in shipping, I paid multiple times in import duty. I bring this up because it got me thinking if I had to pay an import duty on every item I bought from an international seller regardless of how low the price is, I wouldn't make half of the purchases I do. It's really gotten crazy.

I returned an item to Weta earlier this year and had to pay duty for entry into New Zealand even though I didn't pay U.S. customs duty when I received it. I don't want to get into customs tax law but, it's ridiculous to have to pay to RETURN an item to its country of origin.

Here we have the non-tax threshold in €150, but couriers often invent concepts to charge us anyway, even if the shipping is exempt due to low value. It is very common, even for shipments within my own country regions. And if I refuse to pay any illegal concept and self-dispatch the shipment, they retain/kidnap the package while you do the paperwork personally, for which you need the courier itself to pass you documentation, and many couriers charge you for the documentary transfer, so at the end they always win.

The best thing that can happen here is to send it to you by public mail (Correos), they only charge what they have to charge, without inventing any random concept or charge ridiculous amounts simply for filling out a document.

With CastelKon it sends me through USPS and here the public mail picks it up and delivers it, so it is the best possible option. Although I always have to pay a lot of taxes, I know that with any private courier service I would have to pay a lot more.

Valkrist wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2024 9:52 pm No, I wasn't aware of the change. Wonder what prompted it.

I haven't bought anything from Weta for a while and I doubt I ever will. Last thing I got was the Key to Bag End on that one sale where shipping was free. The item is normally $50, but with the last of my Weta Dollars, I got it down to $7. With $0 for shipping, that sounds like a sweet deal, right? Wrong. After the unabashed pirates that UPS are dropped the tiny box off at my door, I also received a lovely invoice for $40, 90% of which was their absurd brokerage fees. Awesome.

My cup, as they say, hath runneth full.

I haven't gotten anything from FedEx in a long time, but if I recall correctly, they're not much better. People online say you can avoid the outrageous charges if the shipping retailer uses Air service instead of Ground (which is what incurs the bulk of the fees), but I'm positive Weta was using Air because the tracking route for my items was always the same: Seattle, LA, Vancouver, and given the times and dates, those boxes were on a plane, not a truck.

I guess the only way to test this out is to order something from them again, but I'm very wary of doing that.

As for your question to the cutoff, I know that from my experiences with shipping things myself, it's always Width x Length x Height, entered in any order. Whatever that total number comes out to, there is a scale that calculates the shipping rate once the weight is also factored in. I think the shields manage to squeak by because one of those three numbers is actually small? Same for the staves. Still boatloads more than it used to be though.

Nasnandos wrote:

Ronin wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2024 5:42 pm I'm curious as to how much of an increase in shipping it would be to have the bow made into two pieces vs one. Are we talking double, or triple the price compared to say a sword?

The sales for steel swords vs polyresin prop replicas are night and day. Anduril is considered extra large and gets hit with the extra handling charges, but that has not stopped it from continuously selling for over 20 years. Poly sells much slower, with far less units, in smaller production runs. Assuming it even sells well enough to stay in the line for more than a year or two. Hopefully the bow will be something that sells fairly well and gets reissued frequently, but I seriously doubt it will sell even a fraction of the units any of the top swords do.

I have not looked at rate differences in a while, but I think making the bow one piece vs two would roughly double the cost for UPS or FedEx, plus an extra handling charge because of the extra long box. UC is looking at more than just the nutty UPS rates though. Making the bow one piece doubles the box length, which doubles the space it fills on a shipping container, doubling the cost just to get it to the warehouse. The corrugated outer remailer box also doubles in size, and those are a big expense now. All that raises the unit cost, which also means more duties, sales tax, et cetera. It all amounts to a big cost hit for the collector, so it's much better if it can be made to fit in a smaller box.

Nasnandos wrote: Fri Jan 05, 2024 6:51 am

Ronin wrote: Thu Jan 04, 2024 5:42 pm I'm curious as to how much of an increase in shipping it would be to have the bow made into two pieces vs one. Are we talking double, or triple the price compared to say a sword?

The sales for steel swords vs polyresin prop replicas are night and day. Anduril is considered extra large and gets hit with the extra handling charges, but that has not stopped it from continuously selling for over 20 years. Poly sells much slower, with far less units, in smaller production runs. Assuming it even sells well enough to stay in the line for more than a year or two. Hopefully the bow will be something that sells fairly well and gets reissued frequently, but I seriously doubt it will sell even a fraction of the units any of the top swords do.

I have not looked at rate differences in a while, but I think making the bow one piece vs two would roughly double the cost for UPS or FedEx, plus an extra handling charge because of the extra long box. UC is looking at more than just the nutty UPS rates though. Making the bow one piece doubles the box length, which doubles the space it fills on a shipping container, doubling the cost just to get it to the warehouse. The corrugated outer remailer box also doubles in size, and those are a big expense now. All that raises the unit cost, which also means more duties, sales tax, et cetera. It all amounts to a big cost hit for the collector, so it's much better if it can be made to fit in a smaller box.

Ronin wrote: Fri Jan 19, 2024 2:51 pm I didn't expect the Strider knife to be back in stock so soon. I've been counting the days for his scabbard to be in stock but I guess I can hold off for another month before ordering

Jamie Shakespeare wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2024 11:34 pm Kit, I've always wondered just how many of some of these swords are out there. Not sure if you can, but do you have a rough idea of how many official UC Anduril swords there are out in the world?

Nasnandos wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 3:55 am

Ronin wrote: Fri Jan 19, 2024 2:51 pm I didn't expect the Strider knife to be back in stock so soon. I've been counting the days for his scabbard to be in stock but I guess I can hold off for another month before ordering

So soon? It's been out of production for 15 or 16 years

Hopefully there won't be any snafus like the last two reissues UC received.

Nasnandos wrote:

Jamie Shakespeare wrote: Sun Jan 21, 2024 11:34 pm Kit, I've always wondered just how many of some of these swords are out there. Not sure if you can, but do you have a rough idea of how many official UC Anduril swords there are out in the world?

When I ran the LOTR program at the old UC, we made around 20k from the time it was released until the end of 2006 when I left the company. I know it has always continued to be the #1 seller in the line, but I don't know the numbers in the 16 years since UC changed hands in 2007. Sales for the whole line slowed down from then until around 2011 when it picked up again. I know it's been one of UC's top brands since the Hobbit films were released, so it's probably safe to assume they have made at least as many as were made at the old UC. More likely 3x to 4x that.

For comparison, I designed a kyber bowie/machete for the Indiana Jones license at the old UC, way back in 1988. They made over 60k of those in the 16 years they had the license. It was UC's most successful movie replica, but it was not even used in any of the films! I have the feeling Anduril did far better.

Ronin wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 7:33 am Edit: I just looked at it. Which prop is that based on? Obviously, it's not the one Indy cuts the bridge with. Is it from Temple of Doom? Or is it an "inspired by" type knife (in other words, not an actual replica)? Was it funtional?

Nasnandos wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 8:04 am

Ronin wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 7:33 am Edit: I just looked at it. Which prop is that based on? Obviously, it's not the one Indy cuts the bridge with. Is it from Temple of Doom? Or is it an "inspired by" type knife (in other words, not an actual replica)? Was it funtional?

It was not really based on anything. That was back in the early days of UC, when they would sometimes secure a license, then figure what to make. Indy never had a signature knife he used in the films, so the idea was to take a jungle machete, or maybe a pocket knife, and just slap the brand on it. That was something Lucasfilm did a lot of.

It was not something I, or the president of UC at the time, were thrilled with. We thought an in-universe artifact with a back story would be more interesting. I came up with the kyber bowie idea the morning we were supposed to meet with the Lucasfilm licensing department at Lucas Valley ranch. I literally sketched it up on a napkin at breakfast, and that is what we pitched to them.

I think the first version with the leather sheath was functional, but stainless, not carbon like a real machete should be made of. It was more of a collectible, and later versions had a wall plaque.

Ronin wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 8:12 am Kind of a missed opportunity to not make the Temple of Doom machete though, no?

Nasnandos wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 8:43 am I'm sure we would have sold a few, but I think that would have bombed quick. It was not really his machete. He just grabbed it and used it in that one scene. Plus, I hated that movie
Prop replicas of the head piece to the staff or Ra, the gold idol, a mini Ark of the Covenant, and Indy's whip from from Raiders are really what I wanted to do with that license. Other than the whip, I kind of got blank stares when I suggested the others. It was a different market back then.

I did get to watch The Last Crusade in the Lucas THX theater on the ranch when I was there, so that was cool. Somehow the Lucasfilm folks got George to autograph a Star Wars poster for me, which apparently he rarely does. My boss at the time pulled some strings and gifted that to me.

To tie it all back to LOTR, the success of the Indy license was a big reason New Line trusted UC to take on the LOTR license. That Lucasfilm connection is what really got us in the door.

N2darkness wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 9:03 am Seems like even back then you were ready to make prop replicas and more then just bladed weapons. It would have been a good time to have created a sub-company that made other props so they weren't focused on selling through just knife and sword retailers.

N2darkness wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 9:03 am I also built him a custom display for the bowie with a world map and red lines connecting destinations. Wish I had some pics of the finished piece.

Nasnandos wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 10:08 am Definitely. UC was already selling to the comic book/collectible distributors with Rambo and some of their other licenses. We even had a logo that was just the United brand for non-bladed collectibles. It never really went anywhere though. I think everyone one just wanted us to stay in our lane.

It still irks me that we could not get a Star Wars license to make real metal light saber replicas back in the early 1990s. It was just plastic toys back then, but I wanted to make accurate replicas in aluminum and cast metal. We would have made Ben, Luke, and Vader sabers, along with some non-film designs to flesh the line out. We pitched that a few times, without success. I did get to use my saber designs later on UC's Samurai 3000 swords.

N2darkness wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 10:31 am That would have been great and years ahead of what Master Replicas eventually did.

N2darkness wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 10:31 am I remember the Samurai 3000 line, they really reminded me of the katana Blade used in the Marvel movie from the 90's.

Nasnandos wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 5:44 pm My saber hilts were designed about 8 years before there was a Blade film, but if it were not for the Daywalker sword, those Samurai 3000 things would never have been made. UC made the Blade stuff for Factory X, so I was involved in creating all those prop replicas. The sword sold so well that UC wanted something similar for their line. Those old lightsaber designs worked perfectly.

N2darkness wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 8:01 pm You must have helped or designed hundreds if not over a thousand pieces so far in your career?

N2darkness wrote: Mon Jan 22, 2024 8:01 pm How many of the Factory X pieces did you work on? I always wanted and still occasionally look for for the Hessian sword from Sleepy Hallow. Always thought the design was so cool and thoroughly enjoy the movie. It's a yearly staple in our home.

Nasnandos wrote: Tue Jan 23, 2024 5:59 am I remember doing CAD drawings of the Hessian sword and axe so we could work up costs to make them, but I think FX went under before we got to the next stage. That first sword replica may have been made by the company that bought the FX name later, or if it was the original FX, maybe they went with another maker. I don't recall now, but I know it was not made by UC's factory, and it was not based on the drawings I created from the prop. I was a huge Sleepy Hollow fan, and love the film sword, but the replica never looked right. The later Windlass version was even less accurate.

The new 4K transfer of Sleepy Hollow looks awesome, by the way.

Nasnandos wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 5:56 am I saw these today. This version is looking good so far, or at least what I saw did. I got to see the corrected High Eleven Helms too, with the paint actually finished this time.

Valkrist wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 8:30 am lol... looks like an armoury in Lindon, just before the Last Alliance elves come in to suit up for their long march to Mordor!

Can't wait to finally get my hands on a proper White Staff. Based on how far along they are, when do you guess most retailers might be seeing them (knowing that the first batches always go to BudK)?

Valkrist wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 10:56 am Sounds like there's a chance we'll see them being sold by late Spring then. Does UC have its containers shipped to the west coast, or do they go the longer overseas route to the east coast? With all the hassles going on in the Red Sea, I'm curious if that would have an impact if that's the route they take (it makes zero sense to me for shipments from Asia to come over the Atlantic, but shipping logistics do defy reason sometimes).

Nasnandos wrote: Wed Jan 24, 2024 6:46 am No, remotely. Those are snapshots from a video walk through of production earlier today. I wanted to see the Elf helms up close to confirm they actually completed all the paint steps on the unfinished helms that were sent back to the factory, so someone walked through the production line while videoing. I saw the staffs were also in production, so I grabbed a few snapshots. Some of the staffs have the white base coat, some have the off-white overcoat, and some have the hand painted white wash effect applied. They should all be finished next week.
Here are a few screen grabs of the Elf helms. I caught a few places where I could still see some gold spillover, but otherwise, it looks like they match my prototype.

N2darkness wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2024 7:30 am Do you get to do remote video walk throughs with the other factories as well? Or just email correspondence and samples sent back and forth?

N2darkness wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2024 7:30 am I've seen a few comments from people who had received one, but they had no idea these were essentially recalled to be fixed. Does UC know how many of the defective ones were sold and not returned?

Nasnandos wrote: They always come into Savannah, since United is right there in South Georgia. Much better than dropping on the west coast and then trucking across country. The routes vary by shipping company used, but usually they go from Shanghai through the panama canal.

Nasnandos wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2024 11:02 am I don't know if UC issued any kind of recall, and I doubt they know how many of the small number that actually shipped were defective. As I understand it, some of the helms had all the paint operations completed, but the majority did not. The factory mistakenly moved those to the completed area, so they got packed and shipped to UC. UC did not want to waste the labor to open them all here to find out which were finished, so they just shipped everything back to the factory to complete.

Valkrist wrote: Fri Jan 26, 2024 11:16 am It's always unfortunate when this happens, but it almost feels like UC is becoming like Weta in a way when it comes to pre-ordering stuff: wait and see until the first shipment of product lands in the hands of the few overeager and unsuspecting collectors, and then find out from reviews and comments online whether there are prevalent problems, and whether the company is taking steps to remedy them. Good on UC for doing this, they've got Weta beat hands down in that department.

Nasnandos wrote: Sun Feb 11, 2024 5:04 pm Uhg, that handle color is terrible. I know there will be some variance in dye color due to the varying color of the wood used, but that is way outside the tolerance. Everything else looks right.

BaronOfArathorn wrote: Thu Mar 28, 2024 6:51 pm I am particularly interested to learn about UC's new battle forged line. Do you happen to know of any updates on the new Herugrim sword? Any news on the potential wet wrapped leather grip, double fuller tip improvements and extension back through the horse guard and overall improved depth?

- Nate

N2darkness wrote: Mon Apr 08, 2024 7:16 am I check UC and BudK daily and I noticed 4 new items on the Budk website. They are group collections and have their own UC item number.

Nasnandos wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2024 3:41 pm Those types of sculpted goblets and mugs are all over the web. Most of them are polyresin with removable stainless steel cups inside. I have done a few for clients, including this one.
https://www.budk.com/Dune-House-Atreide ... cens-51503

I designed a whole line for LOTR, but they never got made for some reason.

Valkrist wrote: The Servant of the Eye one is a tad too gaudy for my tastes, but the Rohan one is nice. It doesn't say what it's made of, but not hard to guess by the low price. The other one does say cold cast resin with a metal rim... so, no thanks. Drop that on the floor and kiss it goodbye. I supposed the consolation would be at least you didn't pay much for it, but if they made one out of metal and charged a bit more, at least it'd be worth it.

Valkrist wrote: Tue Apr 16, 2024 5:24 pm Couldn't if I wanted to. As far as Budk is concerned, the world ends at your northern border. Canada?!? What's that? Fake news!