Series 00 CNY Hu (虎）& Happy Chinese New Year!
我们的团队祝大家新年快乐，恭喜发财，虎年吉祥！
The team from esc lab wishes everyone a happy Chinese New Year, fortune & wealth, and a prosperous Year of the Tiger!
esc lab is welcoming and celebrating the firey and feisty Year of the Tiger by releasing a special edition Series 00 CNY Hu (虎）made of Sandblast Bronze-tinted PVD Brass.
Inspired by traditional Old Chinese bronzeware seal script (小篆), bespoke calligraphy of the word 虎 (Hu, or Tiger) was designed and laser-engraved onto the familiar Series 00 sculpt.
Series 00 CNY Hu will only be available from the first day of Chinese New Year (春节) Feb 1st 2022 to Feb 15th 2022.
Design
A bit of history
To Chinese people, 春节 and the fifteen days of festivities that come after are of family, gathering, tradition, renewal, feasts, and of course, red pockets.
As 春节 is a tradition shared by all three founders of esc lab, we wanted to share a piece of work that would allow us to pay respect to our heritage.
Chinese culture follows the Chinese zodiac, which assigns an animal to each year in a repeating cycle. Tradition also claims you share the characteristics of said animal.
2022 is Year of the Tiger, 虎. Those born in the Year of the Tiger are born leaders, courageous, love a challenge or competition, and have short tempers. As someone with both parents being Tigers - I tend to agree. A lot.
Do you share your zodiac’s characteristics?
Groupbuy details
GB Date: Feb 1st 2022 (春节) - Feb 15th 2022 （元宵节）
Price: $68 (phonetically sounds like 一路发，or continuous prosperity)
Fulfillment: Q2 2022
Vendors:
ALL LIVE
Mechs & Co. (USA and Canada)
zFrontier EN (Asia, Europe, UK, Australia, and more)
zFrontier CN (China, Hong Kong, Taiwan, Macau)
Product details
Color: Bronze
Material: Brass
Finish: Sandblast
Coating: PVD
Profile: Series 00 (learn more about the Series 00 profile)
Stem: Cherry
Row: R1
FAQ
- Will you release more zodiacs? :hush emoji:
- Will Series 00 Hu only be available between Feb 1 to 15th? Yes.
- Is this made out of bronze or brass? Brass.
- Is the brass coated? Yes, with Bronze-tinted PVD.
- Did you really make a custom bronzeware inscription-inspired logotype? Yes, Cubic handmade it through a couple dozen iterations. What is Series 00? A brutalist interpretation of a Cherry-compatible metal artisan sculpt.
- Can I fill my whole keyboard with this? Yes, but it will be stupidly expensive + Series 00 was made for row 1 of your keyboard.
Join the esc lab family
Thank you
- The esc lab family, from your favorite volleyball club, Tanner
- Louis from zFrontier
- Mike, Patrick, Chris, and more, from Mechs & Co.
- Ancient Chinese people for inventing this script
📰 September 17 2021: Shipment to four vendors begin!
Note: We realized we didn’t share the update from last month (which was posted on Discord and Instagram) here. Apologies for that! This September update will catch you up to everything that’s happened.
Yay it’s shipping!
We are very happy to announce that all four Series 00 group buy shipments have left our manufacturer and is on their way to Mechs & Co, Deskhero, Candykeys, and zFrontier.
Below is an estimated timeline of how long it will take for the group buy package to go from our manufacturer to the warehouses of each of our four vendors.
Vendor shipping timeline
The following timeline is the time it takes to go from our manufacturer to the warehouses of each vendor, NOT the time it will take to arrive to your doorstep.
Mechs & Co. — 45 to 50 days
Deskhero — 45 to 50 days
Candykeys — 8 to 10 days
zFrontier — 3 to 5 days
Why the long face shipping time?
I’m sure some of you may be asking, why are the shipping times all so different?
The answer is simple — each vendor uses a different shipping service (from short haul local courier such as within Asia to long-haul ocean freight for trans-pacific shipments). These were the best options available for each vendor to choose from.
I do apologize, however, for our inaccurate initial estimate of how long it would have taken for ocean freight to go from coast to coast. When we started our GB, the estimate given to us was about 25-30 days… which was all the way back in early 2021. Of course, with the pandemic + holiday shopping coming up in North America + global logistics bottlenecks (such as Apple shipping hundreds of millions of iPhones), the global supply chain is a bit stressed right now, which means for our North American friend, your product will be slightly delayed. But we promise it will arrive.
Once the product arrives in each four vendor’s warehouses, each vendor communicated to me that they will take about a week to unpack, sort, and ship each order.
If you have any advanced questions such as changing order addresses, inquiries on extras (such as when and how much), shipping timelines, shipping speeds, etc, please forward your questions to each vendor. They will be more than happy to help you out!
We will also share an updated shipping timeline graphic very shortly.
We appreciate your patience, and thank you for being part of our journey!
— loop, Cubic, and Isshin
📰 July 27 2021: Series 00 manufacturing completed. QC begins!
📍 Series 00 Manufacturing
Manufacturing of Series 00 is fully completed!
While the machining (as shared in the previous update on Discord) was completed fairly quickly, it was the post-processing of anodization, polishing, sandblasting, lasering, etc, that took the majority of post production time. But we are super happy to say everything is completed!
A portion of the completed work was sent to Cubic for further QC. So, this means we are doing double quality control through the manufacturer (with the strict QC guidelines drafted by us) as well as personal QC by Cubic. This began yesterday. We anticipate we should have news on this final QC milestone soon, and we will share an update as soon as this is complete. We will also share an updated timeline of the GB progress :)
📍 Series 00 & Series 00 XXXXL Packaging Manufacturing
Our packaging manufacturer needs about 1-2 more weeks to complete the mass production of the packaging, which includes the Series 00 XXXXL packaging.
Once our personal QC of the Series 00 passes, the completed Series 00 will then be shipped to our packaging manufacturer for packing + delivery to our four vendors.
We do not have an 100% accurate timeline on this, but we will share an updated timeline once the QC milestone passes.
📍 Series 00 Updated Timeline
We are currently on-time with our estimated timeline, and we are proud we are hitting these milestones. As said previously, we will share an updated timeline (like the ones we’ve shared in the past) once we get more concrete numbers.
📍 Series 00 XXXXL Fulfillment
Manufacturing of all Series 00 XXXXL completed few weeks ago, and the completed product is en route to loop for shipping to our Canada and US customers.
Unfortunately, the package is currently stuck in customs, but we are actively working to resolve this. Once loop receives this, he will be able to ship them out individually to customers within days.
However, those that won the June 2021 XXXXL raffle will have to wait a few more weeks for fulfillment as these ones come with the XXXXL packaging, which are not completed yet (as said above). The other units of April Fool’s 401, Minterly’s charity auction, ARG, etc, do not include the packaging and thus will be ready to ship ASAP.
The team wonders whether these suspiciously looking like packed drugs as well as our name having “lab” in it contributed to it being stuck in customs..
📍 Series 00 XXXXL August 2021 Raffle
Coming soon. Be sure to join our Discord for instant notifications on when this will go live.
I am happy to reveal that the August 2021 XXXXL Raffle will be the Black Aluminum Series 00 XXXXL with Series ID between 0 and 4.
Hope you don’t catch the L this time.
📍 Website Updates
No one likely noticed this but some minor updates were done to our website to better organize our growing product list.
No this isn’t an Easter Egg.
📍 未来产品
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Thank you for supporting esc lab and being patient with our first group buy.
We hope you are happy with the progress so far, and we absolutely cannot wait to reveal what we have in store for our future.
// loop, Cubic, and Isshin
📰 May 27 2021: Huge Series 00 manufacturing update!
Hello friends
I realized that we never posted a newsletter update after the end of the Series 00 GB. If you are part of our Discord or Instagram, you will have read this part, but I will re-share it here for our email-only friends.
There’s a lot to cover in this update, so please bear with me.
📍 Series 00 Final Groupbuy Numbers
We got our final sales numbers and damn... is all I can say.
We hit 230% MOQ and sold 2900 Series 00 total.
Final numbers
Sandblast Aluminum Silver - 350 units @ 140%
Sandblast Aluminum Black - 568 units @ 227%
Sandblast Brass - 471 units @ 188%
Polished Stainless Steel - 832 units @ 333%
Polished Brass - 664 units @ 266%
We blew way past our goal and it was all thanks to each and every one of you! On behalf of Cubic, Isshin, and I — THANK YOU!
📍Series 00 Production Updates
The manufacturing for Series 00 begun last week, here's a progress shot from our manufacturer. Look at 'em shmexy shinies! I'm so stoked to see them already working on all the initial CNCing.
Once initial CNCing is completed, they will then, depending on the material, go through sandblasting, anodizing, polishing, lasering, quality control, and more.
P.S. The solid blocks of billets are how Series 00 babies are born. They can fit 14 Series 00 on one metal billet, before they machine them off the scaffolding.
So far, knock on wood, everything seems on-schedule.
Our packaging manufacturer also has the order to begin, though we are requesting a few more samples before beginning mass production. They do have more time than our Series 00 manu because they require the keycaps to be completed before they begin packaging. We'll share more updates on this as we get more information.
📍Series 00 XXXXL Production Updates
Last week, we ran our first Series 00 XXXXL bimonthly Raffle Sale. How this works is that every two months, we will offer FIVE Series 00 XXXXLs of a particular limited drop theme that we will do a raffle sale of. This raffle sale system will be used over a limited or unlimited groupbuy because we think it makes more sense as we see XXXXL as a collectible rather than an “in-stock’ item.
We found our first raffle winners last week — congrats to all winners! All five folks will get the opportunity to buy a Silver XXXXL.
Manufacturing of these XXXXLs have began, and will be finishing fairly shortly.
We've also completed the packaging design of the XXXXLs, and our packaging vendor will begin the sample + production of those in conjunction. I’m biased but I think the XXXXL packaging looks pretty dope.
Note that only bimonthly drop participants will get the packaging. Not the 401 winners. Sorry.
📍 Manufacturing Timeline
We will share an updated manufacturing timeline very shortly.
📍 Raffles & giveaways
I (loop) know that I owe a number of you your giveaway prizes — specifically the Reddit Series 00 proto giveaway. I’m so sorry for delaying this and I will aim to ship it out within the next two weeks after my vacation ends.
Also, a number of you also have won giveaways with our respective vendors. They will ship those out once manufacturing completes, when they receive the GB shipment. Those will take a few months — that is normal :).
Regarding raffles and giveaways, our lovely giveaway bot developer xTrueDoc has implemented some cool new features to the bot including extra lives/tickets for Insider and Friends & Family roles! Insiders get up to four extra “lives” (meaning if you were eliminated in the first life, you get four more chances). As a result of this update, we have also resetted the Discord leaderboard. As you may recall (or not), how active you are in our communities (Discord, Instagram, Reddit, etc) allow us to knight you with an Insiders role. There’s a ton of benefits including these extra raffle lives :)
📍 Series 00 GB R2 when??
Many of you said that you missed the Series 00 R1 GB, and wondering if we’ll run a round 2 of the GB.
No. There will not be a Series 00 GB R2 any time soon. BUT! If you want to cop a Series 00 (or a few) and didn’t get the chance to, each of our four vendors (Mechs & Co, Desk Hero, Candy Keys, and zFrontier) will have PLENTY of extras that they will be selling after they start fulfilling the Series 00 GB.
Rest assured that if you want to grab a Series 00, you have quite a big chance to do so.
Thanks again for your support, and we’ll see you in the next update.
Cubic, Isshin, loop // esc lab
⏰ Series 00 — Two days left for GB! And giveaways giveaways giveaways.
Hello all!
Series 00 GB
This is the TWO DAYS for you to purchase a Series 00 - we officially close on April 24th! If you've been waiting, on the fence, or just haven't bought it yet, this is your last few days to do so!
Click here to purchase Series 00.
Latest sales figures from April 19th. Everything will be made!
Silver Aluminum - 176 @ 71% to MOQ
Black Aluminum - 257 units @ 103% to MOQ
Sandblast Brass - 213 units @ 85% MOQ
Polished SS - 365 units @ 146% to MOQ
Polished Brass - 286 units @ 114% to MOQ
Highlights
Silver Alu seems to need the most love
Three Series 00 has reached and exceeded MOQ, with Polished SS destroying the MOQ
We'll share more info on the lil sum sum very soon
We sold 123 Foundry Edition bundles so far
We have sold ~1300 units combined total, which means we're at 104% MOQ (average combined)
Note: Sales figures do not include extras.
Giveaways giveaways giveaways
The esc lab community is the most important thing to us. We know we thank you a lot in our emails, but what better way to show our genuine thanks than a way for you to win free stuff!
We will be hosting a giveaway every single day until the end of this week. Yes! Many many chances for you to own a Series 00 for free.
How to enter
We are currently hosting one on Reddit — to join, you simply need to leave a comment on the most recent kind thing you did for someone or something.
There are daily giveaways on our Discord #giveaways channel. The one running right now is currently hosted by a community member AuroraCamo who wants us to support #TeamTrees! There will be more hosted by other supporters, so get in now!
Thank you, and that is all from us now.
Thank you for the incredible, I mean incredible response to the Series 00 GB. The numbers we are seeing now are something I’ve never seen from a groupbuy of a new designer of a new product, especially artisans. This is all thanks to you.
- loop, Cubic, and Isshin