Same. That’s one GB that I was glad I was broke when it ran. I love me some Gundam & was very tempted to join. Thankfully I got in on the original GB for the WK-001 Sunshine & Night Unicorn caps ran by Jchan so I’m not completely Gundamless on the artisan front!
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For me, I’ve had a remarkably lucky streak with GBs since I’ve got into this hobby. The worst one I was part of would have to be the SA Godspeed GB through MD. Although that was just a long wait for a great end product so I can’t really complain about it too much. For a best GB I participated in, there really isn’t one. I’ve been part of some that ran smoothly without any issues & some that only had one or two very minor issues. Although I don’t want to single one out of that group cause they all honestly went well & were run well so it doesn’t feel right to laud one over the other IMO.
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I accidentally bought 2 of the gundam kits when I only wanted one, definitely the worst and longest for me… MX:SS and modern M0110 have also been taking forever and at this point I’m not even completely sure where those are at.
I’ve had many good ones though, Norbauer and Fox Labs (twice) were both positive experiences that immediately come to mind.
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I haven’t really had any bad experiences with group buys. I’ve really only been in the hobby for a couple of years, but I’ve been involved in a number of keyset buys, and the only problem with those has been the occasional minor delay.
The Grid 600 buy has been the only keyboard GB I’ve been involved in. There was a bit of a delay with the white cases on that one, but the biggest disappointment was that the colors of the anodized aluminum modules ended up being completely different from the renders. So if you bought hoping to pair them with a particular keyset, you were probably disappointed (as I was).
Longest GB? OG Helix Dogbone Designs GB.
Worst GB? My own pre-order for the Cruciformer. It hasn’t been that bad really, I just expected people to deliver on time and I’m stuck trying to explain to people that the parts that are out of my hands. . . .are out of my hands. my money is stuck in the GB until I ship most of the orders, I want to finish it, etc. I can promise, the worst GBs are the one that you run since it can harder on the GB runner than the participants.
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Hey I got a refund for both of my gundam sets today! Still probably worst gb experience, but it’s nice to get some closure. I wasn’t expecting a good outcome.
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Same, I was expecting them to vanish into the ether. Hopefully someone else takes up the Gundam mantle, really digging the Unit-01 IC in the EVA-verse.
Surely GH60 or Hyperfuse must deserve the worst spot.
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Or toxic lol
Link to the OP’s thread here. This is still happening, still accepting orders, and starting to ship out early orders without dye subbed caps (they’re coming but Joe wanted to get the ones with blanks out ASAP).
Yup… I’m still waiting 
I’m in the dye sub cap batch (like most people).
They’ll be out… eventually 
Not sure if everyone’s aware but please let me know if you wanted your keyboard to ship early without the printed keys (if you had other Model M or Model F keys or Unicomp keys that you wanted to borrow). As per my recent blog update, I’ve been mailing out lots of orders early while the factory takes care of the key sublimation to help reduce the number of keyboards that have to be mailed out later on while I have some down time now. However not all keyboards are eligible as many keyboards (including most of the compact case keyboards) are in the second container shipment of the early bird round, delayed this year but shipping in about a month or so from China (more details on the project web site blog).
@macclack your optimism on the Lumina is far greater than mine! It has been sadly written off.
I used to mostly avoid group buys and pick things up on Mechmarket secondhand, because prices usually were not too bad so long as you weren’t hunting for a classic Korean board. People used to offer their used goods at reasonable prices.
Since the hobby has grown and inflation on Mechmarket is through the roof, I’ve joined more group buys than usual this year.
Let’s just say my optimism has waned significantly 
Another GB I’m not holding my breath for is the G60. I will be very surprised if I ever get a shipping notification.
I almost bought someone’s spot on the G60 last year. Isn’t that one of the group buys where a decent batch actually made it to people mostly in Asia? To me that is more infuriating than a group buy that totally fails, but I guess I should be happy for the people who got theirs in those cases.
Yeah I think a few have trickled out there. I die a little inside every time I see one knowing I may never get mine.
Longest: MT3 Susuwatari - it will get here tomorrow(!), and the GB was in 2018.
Best: GMK Nines - I just love the set, and of all those I’ve seen personally, this set most closely matched its IC renders.
Worst: Massdrop CTRL - this might not count, but I’ve been lucky with the traditional group buys so far, Susuwatari delays aside. The 1st gen CTRL is a fine keyboard, but some of its quirks and flaws do keep it from earning its price tag, IMO. I understand that at least some of this was addressed in the updated Drop CTRL.
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Honestly don’t have too much to say about worst or longest GBs - but I will say that the Fox Lab Leaf60 GB was a pretty fantastic experience. The turnaround time was really quick as far as keyboard gbs go and I love typing on this thing.
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so, I was part of the “worst” GB, the E8 v1. This might be unpopular to say, but I was able to recoup my money contesting the transaction with PayPal about a week before the expiration. I figured, given the lack of information from the GB leader, that a refund could be issued and he could re-invoice me if it was legit.
Turns out that by following my gut, I saved some money.
Strangest groupbuy i was for the chiwi60 r1, where they messed something up and just didn’t produce a single black hhkb top and then did send another one to reanodize black and i insisted on seeing photos before they were send out. It took ages.
I got my board in the end and did build it with holy chickies
which are quite loud, together with it beeing top mount brass,
a big empty space inside the case and the polycarb bottom this thing sounds …terrible!
and i couldn’t get used to hhkb because if use capslock as function and putting control somewhere else messes with me.
Well, it does look kinda okay…
…but thats far better then what happened to the poor folks joining in for round two of that rollercoaster.
Oh and i ordered one of those createboard wood cases, the bulbinga was defect i voted for getting it remand, took ages from the factory and then there were riots in hongkong where the seller was living. he said after me messageing him that i did not recieve my case he did send another ine out but could not do tracking because bringing papers with you would be dangerous…
Well, he said he did send two, i didn’t recieve anything.
Sucks, but at least it was ‘just a wood case’
I enjoyed being part of the homerow co groupbuy for the wonderland pcb and lubrigante case. Very open, very active on discord. Would recommend.
And the GB for the T60 from xondat and the polaris gb both were smooth on my end too.
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