I've been lurking on this forum for around two months now, so I figured it was time to give back and post a review or four.
The first piece I ordered online was a small bubbler from iOffer's Andysk2. For $63 I got this:
Hits quite nice, and came with an extra adapter. It was a gift so I haven't used it much, but I'd give it a solid 7/10.
Next came the Upline piece from Wings of Liberty (
laubinyo). I'd been browsing iOffer almost every day, and found the 20 inch version (the tallest) posted for $113 one afternoon. I assumed it was a error, and that they wouldn't honor it, but sure enough the piece showed up 17 days later.
The piece hits like a champ, and while I've almost pulled a lung a time or two trying to clear it, I keep it in my rotation. Unlike all my other chinese pieces, this one seems hand-crafted, and there's zero imperfections. 9/10
The next two pieces I got were the diffusion pump, and spiral recycler.
The diffusion came from Steven, and took only 12 days to get here. The spiral I ordered from CCG, and it took 14. I love the diffusion, easily 10/10, and the spiral is cool to show off. Not good for much else, and reclaim tends to get stuck in the neck - 6/10.
I ordered a turtle fritted disc from Alina0086, and it took 17 days to get delivered. I'd never hit a frit-disc before, and honestly I think it might be my favorite perc for combustion (this was a gift for a friend who only combusts, and I haven't dabbed with this piece yet).
9/10 - for $45 I'm thrilled.
I've also bought the 2 color gun rig:
http://www.dhgate.com/product/two-c...e/229013274.html#myaccount_orderdetail-1-null
I wouldn't recommend it to anyone looking for a high quality, useable piece, but it looks sick, and stands up. Can't complain for the $23 I paid.
Okay now for the problems I've had. I placed an order for Kathy's new fab egg on February 25th. I was sent a tracking number on the 10th of March, but it didn't update with anything until the 25th. It was finally delivered on Wednesday (the 1st), but instead of shipping the newest fab egg, I was sent the older, smaller model (with honeycomb perc). I messaged Kathy, and she apologized, and asked me to send the piece to another "USA Client". She then proceeded to send me all of the guy's contact information, and shipping address. So if there happens to be a Sean from Savannah Georgia on here, hit me up, I've got your piece. Kathy seems unwilling (or simply can't understand how) to send a prepaid shipping label, so I'm not sure when I'll actually send this thing out.
I've read a lot about "fake" shipping labels, but from what I've experienced, it seems like sellers will register a tracking number with USPS (or chinese company), but not actually ship the piece, in order to circumnavigate DHGate's time requirements. Quite a few of my tracking numbers have been showing "unable to locate" for a week or more, before finally updating.
I called Kathy out on this after my tracking had shown invalid for 14, and she told me "checking tomorrow we need 3 to 5 days local shipping thank you."
Cool, that's helpful, thanks kathy
.
I ordered the D-Cycler and newest CCG fab egg yesterday, and I was given a $3 discount for buying both together. While I would have loved to get a slightly larger discount, CCG has easily had the best communication of all the vendors, so I don't feel bad paying a bit more for their products.
I'd been searching for a high quality incycler for a few months, but finally decided to drop some real $ on a custom piece since I don't trust the assembly lines to produce anything even slightly intricate. I'll post a review over in Recent Acquisitions, but here's a quick picture of the circ to fab klein I got from Brandon P Glass (there's videos on his IG). Pictures don't do the color justice, the blue stardust is incredible in the light:
After using chinese glass as my daily driver for several months, its nice to hit something that is crafted out of love - not some 10 year old's sweat and tears.
Finally, I was curious if anyone has ordered from
Justinetian? They've got a dabuccino klein that I really want:
http://www.dhgate.com/store/product/2015-new-limited-edition-starbucks-glass/228681887.html
It was originally listed at $180, so I messaged them offering $75. They responded offering $120, which I said no to, and the next day they dropped the price to $111.
I've messaged and offered $90 if they sent a water video, but they didn't reply. Oh well.
Anyway thanks to everyone who's posted reviews here in the past - this site has single handedly gotten me addicted to glass.
But he is still at 0 transactions and 0 feedback, so hopefully someone takes a chance and we can see if he is a solid vendor.
They also all seem to include the round slide pieces that we all associate with hard drugs and sketchy-ness, which I'm pretty sure they believe is used to smoke cigarettes through these pipes
we have the standard issue desktop-style cabbage:
My +$350 custom recycler has been on vacation since she arrived. 
