Call it what you want, I've already contacted Dan several times about letting me keep the remaining few LCs to maybe anodize'em a different color to give/sell to friends/others, so there is no "secret plot" afoot to "sell the remaining LC's". I care not if Dan sells them all or decorates his Christmas tree with them (as he's promised to do if this comes about), our deal was that he buy them all from me and do as he pleases with them. And even so, I am willing to relieve him of these last few so that I can "play" with them - splash anodize, tritium application, mix and match "kits" with other accessory parts, whatever. But Dan has decided to keep them all...
But just like when I receive complaints at work from the public about any of my officers speeding or whipping illegal U-turns in the middle of traffic, etc., the public does Not know what is going on behind the scenes. Many times it is because the officer receives a Priority One call over the police radio about something going down which needs immediate response, and hence they do what they gotta do to protect lives or property. That house suffering the burglary-in-progress or that motorcyclist splattered against a freeway guardrail could well belong to the complainant, and he only finds out later - in fact this has ACTUALLY HAPPENED a couple of times during my 22 LEO years.
Thus this situation is also true in the deal involving Tactical Warehouse. The arrangement came about due to the LionHeart run where I just got sick and tired of packing, shipping, selecting specific serial numbers for buyers, sorting out the individual light "order packages" which amounted to just about every one becoming a custom order (some wanted just the light alone, some the light with battery and charger, or light with just charger, light with just battery, or two batteries, or three batteries, or "I want Natural" after they had been on a bare aluminum one all along, or "I want bare aluminum" after wanting a Natural all along, etc., etc., etc. ad infinitum), and it was indeed a welcome opportunity for me to have someone (TW in this case) ready and willing to take on all of this.
So I would build and then sell to TW all these LionCubs in the form of a "bulk sale", and Dan/TW would somehow come up with the money to buy them from me, after which Dan was free to do with them as he pleased, including the packing, shipping, selecting specific serial numbers for people, sorting out each light package, and even setting the final selling price.
I will state here and now that I did attempt to cancel the LionCub Project on more than one occasion, but a deal had indeed already been struck and Dan insisted on going ahead with it. He reassured me everything would be fine and I failed to convince him otherwise.
In addition, our deal was that he would foot all costs involved in working up the project (although he did it via presales anyway and again, it was none of my business how he came up with the money) so as you can see, there were Many responsibilities from which I was relieved, as well as many advantages that greatly simplified my involvement in the overall project. As most of you know, I am all about developing new lights and then offering them up, and nothing about order-taking/packing/shipping; and although I do enjoy posting about the new lights I am coming up with, it is just like how many other modders enjoy posting about their own latest mods.
The ST is my way of allowing Cub buyers to "amortize" their total costs over two products. I am not taking a loss here, I am just not making a profit. Just my way of salving the sting of the LC sales price; Dan has no involvement with the ST whatsoever.
As for the "secret handshake" and the other nice and kind and polite terms used, I am not saying that Cub buyers Cannot or Should Not disclose the cost of the ST, just that I am providing THEM the opportunity rather than going ahead and disclosing it publicly with them having no choice in the matter.
As for some of the suggestions to handle this privately, as inluxication posted above this is PRECISELY what I am doing. A public post of this nature is first necessary, for you can imagine what kind of uproar there would be if the ST were never talked about again, and suddenly the Cub buyers had them. THEN the accusations of "secret cloak and dagger" goings-on would be appropriate and indeed justified. But this way I am first putting it out there for all the world to see, letting everyone know what May eventually be taken behind the scenes.
Now as to the issue of international shipping, I had no hand nor play in this. As I said, all distribution activities subsequent to me finishing the build of LionCubs has been placed with TW/Dan. And as TW/Dan was the only one to offer this partnership, I of course accepted.
Also I doubt that any, or at least not many, here would be willing to risk the several tens of thousands of dollars of their own funds that would be necessary to finance a custom light build of this scale. Only Tactical Warehouse did.
And finally, on distribution of the ST's, I will once again resign myself - *SIGH* - much to my dislike and even abhorrence - to personally packing and shipping all international orders.
Are there any additional questions I can answer for anyone? /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/mad.gif
