Post #3- the experience
1st bag- B30 etoupe- purchased from aaapurses.net. $1053, not from a reddit TS. ordered and paid in full on 1/17. Recd 1/30. Smelled TERRIBLE…So bad I kept a bowl of baking soda inside of it for a month. Smells fine now, but initially was so disappointed it’s what led me to start scrolling through the reddit subs.
I have an authentic evelyn in clemence and belt (which I think is either swift or epsom), both in etoupe, so different leathers and therefor not exact matches for togo, but ai guess clemence is close…the belt hardware color is consistent with hardware on the bag.
2nd bag- B25 noir- purchased from Mark. Inquired on 2/2, it was in stock. Was told it is hand sewn and hardware is brass with gold plating. Showed me pics on 2/3. I paid $1250 in full on 2/13. received 2/28. smelled good. felt good. looked good to me. Hardware tone consistent with my belt.
3rd bag- During this time, in my quest to find a truly “high tier” bag, I was following a sub which had great info on what to look for in a bag, super knowledgable, so I reached out to race2cake, who posts all this great information, and dmed them asking who they’d recommend. I was given a whatsapp #, told not to give it out, (and I can promise you that I didn’t!) and that this seller was so busy and only hand make their bags and don’t usually take new customers, so don’t be surprised if I don’t hear back from them…but they wouldn’t give me an actual contact name so I was flying blind there…I reached out to them on 2/22 about purchasing a B30 gold togo GHW, the seller (WA last 4 digits 5385) responded immediately, told me they could make it for $1790, payment in full, western union or wise, so duh, a couple of red flags right there, but I was so stupidly excited that I went ahead and paid by wise, and as soon as I did, I got this feeling like “geez, I should have looked into this race2cake a bit more” and as soon as I searched the handle or name or whatever, all these posts and comments popped up about race2cake being a scammer, and probably was some guy named Joe Luxury…so I learned of that sad Joe Luxury scam at that point and was very worried I would not even get a bag and that I had just flushed $1800 down the toilet. Suffice it to say, I eventually received pics of the bag, the feet were covering the stitches, and when I called this out the seller said he had already shipped the bag. Received the bag. It’s OK, and it didn’t smell funny, but I don’t think it would be considered high tier and I’ll probably try and cut my losses and rehome it at some point…Lots of lessons learned on that one!
4th and 5th bags- Picotin 22s- ordered from Frank. Inquired on 2/9. Ordered and paid in full on 2/9 for total of $1208 which included insurance. They were being made, and he told me that they’d be ready to ship by 3/20. Didn’t receive pics of black until 3/23, which were GL on 3/24, and gold I received pics on 3/31, and I received on 4/8…so took a while to get them. Gold is a bit disappointing as it’s super slouchy, and color wise, I’m not sure how accurate it is, as I have orans, oasis and belts in gold, but I have nothing authentic in gold clemence to compare it with. These bags get a lot of use on a day to day basis.
I will also say, the gold hardware on all of these bags is very very close to my hammered gold H belt buckle, but not sure how this translates when compared to authentic bag hardware.
6th bag- B30 chai togo- from Atelier1995. I contacted them on 3/1, paid $1400 (discounted from $1460), by paying $500 deposit and balance when I GLed it on 3/19. Very easy to deal with, bag is very nice, I probably use it the most out of the B30s.
7th bag- K25 craie- ordered from Jim on 4/3 and $1380 paid in full at that time. I had been seeing tons of posts about his bags and everyone was happy with them. He sent photos a few times as the bag was being constructed, the last on 5/17. I started seeing “Jim is a scammer” and “Jim=Joe Luxury” posts the past couple of weeks and started getting nervous, but bag was shipped on 5/20 and arrived on 5/27. Bag is very pretty, I love the brushed gold hardware, but it did have a faint odor, no where near as bad as the etoupe.
Anyway, I’d like to see feedback from others, I know the pics aren’t the best, but the only bag I feel like I was totally ripped off on was the race2cake bag, but I would like to know others honest opinions…
I would definitely buy from Mark and Jim again, but I think I would like to try Minion and Peter before I do any second bags with anyone else.
Hope this is helpful.