While I made the earlier Gift Buying Thoughts, I got poked to declare some drop dead cut-off dates for prezzies arriving by Christmas. For Black Blood of the Earth:
BBotE (domestic United States): December 18th
BBotE (international): December 15th
Domestically, BBotE ships priority. This date can be fudged a bit if you want to go express but you’ll have to talk to me about that as the shipping will get much more expensive. International BBotE already goes express, so no help for folks abroad.
Steins of Science are a little trickier. I have some of them built and on hand already; they’ll go out the day after ordered. The cut-off date for the ones on my bench, domestic and international, shipping priority mail is December 19th. Going express would only let me push the deadline out to the 20th, so it’s not really worth it.
When I run out of those, it then becomes luck of the draw how quickly more show up. I generally build to order, but I’m trying to maintain at least a couple of each on hand for the holidays. I normally quote a three week lead time on the steins, but it typically runs faster than that. Having said that, waiting to the last minute is a sure way to not get your stein in time. If I had to guess, any build to order after December 13th is really pushing it.
If you read this far, here’s your reward. There’s a new stein in the Prototypes & Clearance section. The 665ml Hybrid may become a standard stein; this one probably won’t.