LocksmithArmy wrote:the full line is 10 picks, im considering giving a special double sided pick for those who purchase the full line of picks...
that is all for now...
LSA, please put me down for 1 x full set.
o and just for posterity... by the time i get the prototypes... ill have spend less than $150 on the entire business... far less than $87,000
He actually has -- or at least
had --
more than US$87,000. The $87,407 was what he initially raised via
Kickstarter. A year (IIRC) after the
Kickstarter fund-drive closed Mr Towne set-up
openlocksport.com and began taking orders as part of a
second "pre-sale". Reserving your set of picks entailed making payment to Mr Town via
WePay.com. So in addition to the US$87,407 he raised via
Kickstarter he also raised an undisclosed amount by taking advanced orders:
This is a pre-sale! You can follow the production of the picks on the Kickstarter project page. Picks purchased via Kickstarter will ship first, immediately followed by the limited number of sets I will make available during this sale. Please do not purchase these tools if you are not comfortable with waiting.
(Source:
https://openlocksport.com/olsinventory/)
This move made me suspicious because US$87K should have been sufficient to produce the pick sets for the
Kickstarter backers and to also produce a surplus inventory for the initially proposed self-sustaining business:
I'm running this as a pre-sale to get the company started. The money you provide will net you the first run of these awesome tools and the profits will roll right back into the company allowing it to be self sustaining.
(Source:
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/schuyler/lockpicks-by-open-locksport)
However, what appears to have happened is that Mr Towne
burnt most of the US$87K he raised via
Kickstarter on
personal indulgence that was entirely unrelated to the project for which the funds were ostensibly raised. The
second "pre-sale" via
openlocksport.com served to provide more funds for the
completion of the project and for living expenses and personal indulgence.
The quantity and status of the funds collected by Mr Towne via
WePay.com are unknown. The fulfillment of the orders from the
second "pre-sale" are more at risk than those from the
first, namely those associated with
Kickstarter.
So, all-in-all, this represents a monumental fuck-up on the part of Mr Towne and a huge fuck in the arse -- whether as a result of incompetence or fraud, I don't know -- of the lockpicking community.
Tue Mar 06, 2012 2:45 pm 
