Plagiarism

A rare understanding there. Many people never get that! LOL

THE USA government has the their solutions too I guess. Protracted legal suits and "anti-dumping" duties I guess.

Guess we should go back on the gold standard.

The are you going to charge $2000 a piece? Or will the market not bear the "real" selling price?

Will you have to sell them for $200 -- just to get a buyer?

Owen:

Not intended for specifically you. Did the list as much for myself as anything - just a quick reminder in Marketing 101. :-)

However, if everyone thought of all those costs and "jobs" then we would have fewer people selling - because it costs money to sell and many people "subsidize" each piece sold by using their "real income" to produce and sell the pieces they make.

People who "dabble" in an arts and crafts occupation tend to bring down the prices. People who dabble in the real estate market (or stocks) -- by contrast -- tend to raise the prices -- and cause a boom and bust mentality.

Their practice of "dabbling" in crafts production cuts into your income

-- by perpetuating a long-term "bust market" in crafts.

Think of it this way. If you are selling a house, the market is normally controlled by the lowest price house on the street. If you have a $1 million home on a "$150,000 house" street. It is very tough to sell at your price - maybe impossible. A $155K house will sell easily.

A new low -- is a new high.

Owen Lowe wrote:

You don't have to make a lot of product to depress the market. You don't even have to sell it. You just have to make a low value product and offer it. That is usually enough to encourage people to buy neither.

Think about the mechanism. Good horses usually win by a "nose". Same with any good work. Most good work is "a little bit better in all the details" -- apparently to the consumer.

So -- if you were buying a work and there were $100 pieces and $900 pieces -- very similar except the more expensive piece was a bit better in all the respects -- actually making a much better piece in reality. Would you wait to see if the expensive piece were lowered in price? Bet you would.

If you were the seller -- would you eventually cave-in on your price? Probably.

The lower price is usually set by somebody wanting to pay for their lathe (saw or whatever) and their supplies.

Their work is usually "good" but not "great". Since that is the majority of the crafts market -- that is probably how the pricing is set.

This was pretty terse. The explanation should take a lot more care -- but I have a stool to make today since I decide not to go to the PDAC except for the last day - tomorrow. Let the younger folks stand around all day. :-)

Swing and a miss. There is more to trade economics than that.

Lets talk steak first, then sizzle. Argentina produces steak at a lower cost than a Nebraska producer because it has lower cost of production, or export subsidy, or might even be "dumping," which is selling below even its low cost of production because getting something keeps its producers in business instead of falling into whatever social safety net they might have - presumably at a higher social cost than the anticipated loss from selling below cost of production. Then there are other considerations, like creating a demand which will be fulfilled later at a higher price. Won't even go into balance-of-payments considerations where selling for a more universally accepted currency will buy things their money won't.

So much for a 12 oz T-bone, which should not be considered as merely 12 oz of high-grade protein. Now we try to sell the sizzle. It can be as simple as Bonanza versus the ambience of your favorite steak house, or we can vigorously promote the piece as tastier because it's Angus rather than whiteface, more patriotic because it's locally produced, environmentally friendly, or perhaps it's "signature" beef which has received a testimonial from some gourmand. This touches on the subject of this thread - is there some definable "value" beyond 12 oz of meat or a 14" ash bowl? Simple answer, there is if the prospective buyer thinks there is.

My turning wood arrives at $60 per cord. Some city guy pays half that for a single blank, where I get a dozen pieces for the same - more if I use a coring system. My lathe is an antique, my tools are not the latest alloy, I'm efficient enough to make the thing within two hours, and my cost of living and standard of living may be lower as well. Not to mention, the prospective buyers in this lower wage area are more interested in a bowl than my name on the bottom. Steak versus sizzle.

Do I charge more because the other guy's costs or desired return is higher? Most call that gouging. What if the other guy has a more saleable signature - s/he's "recognized" as a great turner. If they've got a monopoly on sizzle, I'm going to have to sell steak, or sell nothing. Either that, or come September I'm going to be short on tuition, my shelves full of unsold stock, which makes it some pretty labor-intensive firewood.

So I'm not in competition with that recognized turner at all. I can't compete. What I charge for steak in no way affects the price of sizzle. If my piece happens to resemble his - well, as we know, an infinite number of monkeys like me will eventually produce pieces that look like someone else's. Of course, they make things that look like mine, too.

Unless your governing body is exceptionally generous, you _must_ collect and pay sales tax, except on one-time sales of personal property. You don't have to have an EIN to pay tax in my state, they take it based on SSAN.

After a particularly busy feeding frenzy of purchasers a few years back, I started rolling taxes into my prices and rounding to the quarter (favoring me, of course). If I hadn't, my daughter suggested she would never help me sell again. Since I enjoy shooting the breeze with other wood lovers more than making change and bagging, I took her advice.

I think we are pretty much in agreement. What you said lays out the issues and offers not too much in the way of a universal solution. Mainly because there is none.

Sounds like the Canada-USA timber/softwood war in a nutshell.

You seem to have a better understanding than some International Negotiators and Legal Experts I have run into.

I will leave it at that.

PS: Run for President. They could use you. (No humour intended)

Best wishes. Sell lots of bowls.

Liked your web site btw. Will use your techniques for some of my turnings. (No I won't send you a royalty -- just think of you. :-) )

George I like your comments on "steak and sizzle." I used to live within ten minutes of a professional turner. I was turning craft (I like to think high quality craft, but craft none the less) and he was turning art. Both of us overlapped a fair bit. We were also good friends and still are. I would turn a salad bowl similar to one of his. Mine sold for $75.00 and his for $200.00. Part of his "sizzle" was his reputation, well earned and enjoyed. Collectors bought his work more so than did the casual buyer. They bought mine. We sold in the same place and in fact he had some of my turnings in his gallery. No conflict there. On the other hand, there was a regional pricing of most things as a starting price. No collusion, no price fixing, just a thought of what a piece of a certain type should bring. Part of the gentleman's agreement was to keep people like me, a hobby turner, from affecting the income of the pros. On the other hand, there was another turner in the area trying to become pro. Both my friend and I helped him with technique and such. I had a vase for sale at about $80.00, my pro friend had a similar one for sale at $300.00, the new guy had a similar one for sale at $260.00. The pro sold his first as I recall, I sold mine second, and as far as I know the new guy still has his after these years. He needed more sizzle to justify the extra cost.

Wouldn't have been a problem if Canada had one of those folks as PM who would just jack up the price rather than try and steal the livelihood from US producers....

Then there are domestic problems as well. After Bubba's lame-duck land grab shut off a mess of acreage up here, we lost a competitive mill because the diminished supply of softwood logs could not keep it in production.

Just a thought. More than once at a craft sale someone has said to me "$75.00 for a salad bowl?" "No," I replay, "$74.00 for the time, skill and the beauty of the wood. $1.00 will get you a salad bowl at the dollar store." If what I was selling was utility, the dollar store would have me beat six ways from Sunday.

George: don't take offense...

Clearly this is not an easy problem...

Because if you think about your reply, I guess you could say that you and Owen are saying the same thing... Free trade and free pricing -- unless the "home team" is getting hurt. LOL

I think that if the Canadian PM tried to set prices then people would scream "socialism" -- or "commies under the bed". (Or Fascism or National Socialism" or something - and probably rightly so... )

It would be even more difficult since virtually all the big companies selling Canadian Lumber (at high volume) into the US are USA owned and operated... I doubt they would remain quiet for price regulation. They find it difficult already -- since they are squarely on both sides of the issue -- having US ownership and Canadian resource production.

But at the same time you seem top be advocating a "free market" by requiring minimum prices. Something you railed against earlier.

I say the above not to "call you out" -- just to point out the difficulties we all face when confronting pricing, copying and production issues.

Being the low cost producer of a valued product always seems to get the dogs set on you.

All we can seem to agree on is that there are difficult issues, and we will _all_ change our minds if the "home team" is the one getting hurt.

I suspect you already knew of the conflicts in your own position and were smiling while you typed.

Fair enough. :-)

Enough of this... Time for lunch and finish my amateurish shop stool.

Every spindle I turned for the stool was different -- all four. I am going to claim it is artistry - not a lack of consistency. LOL

We have lots of softwood logs here. Third growth mostly.

I guess the ellipses weren't enough of a hint.

It's a joke, which the whole business of paying someone else's living is.

Though, if you think about it, with Canada a metric country, the US might have a case for plagiarism for imitating the US 2x4.

Untwist yer knickers, that's also meant to be a bit of light humor to put the foolishness in perspective.

Here you are implying if not saying that you charge based on your costs and time, and this is what I think Owen was getting at. That your material cost is lower is fine, but you are covering your cost, same for your cost of living. While someone did mention an incident about someone being told to raise their price, I don't think this has been the thrust of this thread. This topic has sure taken many interesting turns. Take care Martin

Wasn't offended. Actually even when you are kidding you make a lot of sense.

Tankin yah too seriously I gess.

I think I know him!

I believe that the 'give of themselves' to make ends meet - maybe a little ego massage also. Consider that most painters of the 16th-18th centuries had loads of pupils (cheap labor) and that many of the pupils went on to paint in the style of the master. It didn't seem to bring about the demise of the market, or the system.

When does something become a copy? When does it merely reflect the style of the master?

I'd like to see a real world example of this.

That is the fault of the producer of the show, or the owner of the gallery.

If it was indistinguishable in design from a neolithic pot, would that make a difference?

Going back to the market, why were both pieces in the same place at the same time? Is that the fault of the non-pro, the pro, or the person responsible for assembling the work?

Let's assume that $100 is too low and $900 is buying the signature. What if the $100 turner has lower overhead?

When is it a copy and when is it in the stle of?