2012 Board Count and
other Notes of Consistency
102 Boards Sold, 14 Series Sold Out, Total Number of Boards
Sold to Date: 531
It was a little scary how consistent Nov 2012/Dec 2012 were
with Nov 201/Dec 2011:
Nov 2011: 24 Boards Dec 2012: 24 Boards
Dec 2011: 40 Boards Dec 2012: 39 Boards
Mistakes will be Made
or “15 for 2”
Every year, I think this is the year where I won’t have
boards with boo-boos or mistakes or sand thru issues on the board face inlay.
And every year I have about a ½ dozen boards that have boo-boos or sand-thru
mistakes. I always denote these boards
as having “cosmetic” flaws and sell them accordingly, at a greatly reduced
price. True to the fact I’m a human being and I make mistakes, I think I will
always have a few boards every year that fall into this category. I’ve
struggled a little bit to come up with a nickname for these types of boards.
I’ve tried Latin (“postpono”), “Factory
Seconds” (after the mall by the same name) and this year decided to call these
boards, “15 for 2”. The name also describes the price and the number of boards
you get. 2 boards for $15. Selling them 2 at a time also satisfies my desire to
these boards find a new home as quickly as possible. Who likes to be reminded of their mistakes?
Timing is Something
(but not everything)
So after a couple of years of selling on etsy.com, I can
pretty much predict my sales cycle amazing accuracy. I don’t sell much on my web site anymore.
It’s gotten so slow on my website, even my 2
sponsored links (online gambling websites) have pulled their advertising
dollars. That said, I typically sell between 6 and 8 boards from Jan to August
or approximately 1 board a month. I
usually get one inquiry regarding a specific board per year. Someone wants a
board similar to one I’ve made in the past. I produce such a board, let the
interested party know that it’s ready and usually I never hear another word
from them. And just like clock work, sales start to pick up in mid-November and
are brisk till around mid-December. So
with the timing of sales pretty well worked out, I have been for the last
couple of years scheduling my board building activities with the intent of
having a batch of new boards ready by the end of summer.
By the end of July of 2012 I released 90 boards in 17
series. This year saw quite a few smaller (in number of boards) in a given
series. The next 3 releases are
tentatively planned to be 91, 90 and 90 boards contained with 11, 11 and 8
series respectively.
Minimum Wage
As of this writing, the federal minimum wage is $7.25
hour. I would LOVE to make minimum wage
for the time I spend creating boards. Not quite there yet. After 7 years of making/selling
boards, I’m still averaging somewhere between $4 - $6/hour. And this doesn’t even count the time I spend packaging
& shipping/doing website maintenance/answering emails/creating listings on
etsy.com, etc. But therein lies the value of doing what I enjoy doing – I don’t
do it for the money.
Standards
This year, I made a decision to try and quasi-standardize my
prices on certain types of boards for 2012. I really don’t like trying to come
with prices for boards, so standardizing some prices means I don’t have to
worry about it so much. For example, a
nice looking tournament board is priced at $42 + shipping, but with the myriad
of 29% OFF coupon codes available for Enumero Cribbage Boards (the worst kept
secret on the Internet BTW), a nice looking tournament style board ends up
costing just under $30 + shipping and it includes metal pegs, a new sealed deck
of cards, COA, rules of cribbage, frig magnet, lifetime warranty and typically
another 29% OFF coupon code towards a future purchase.
Wood Pegs
I bought a large handful of nice traditional unpainted wood
pegs a few years back, thinking I would include wood pegs (instead of metal)
with my Rustic style boards. I gave up on that idea. My inherent and irrational
fear of a wood peg breaking off in a board hole is just too powerful. You can
buy wood and metal pegs off the website, but peg sales are infrequent (maybe 2
or 3 sales a year). So what to do with a large handful of wood pegs? Well,
rather than trying to pass them off as very fat toothpicks, I found a much better use
for them. They make excellent plugs for when I accidentally drill through the
bottom of a thin board. I just tap the peg in, saw it flush, sand it and the
whole is plugged from down under. No chance of the peg slipping out the bottom
at some critical junction in the game, since we all know too well how pegs love
to run away and hide.
Ebony and Ivory
Shaped Money
Many moons ago, approximately 120 or so, I bought a “billet”
of Ebony. I seem to remember paying around
$100 for it. About 30 or 40 of the 2012 boards have inlay point
separators. In making the inlay separators, I finally ran out of ebony strips, so I went to
the enumerocribbageboards.com offsite “really, really expensive lumber storage
facility” and lifted the 70# hunk of ebony wood into the shop and started carefully
cutting it up. I took off about ¼ of it and returned the remaining piece to its
temperature controlled hermitically sealed storage area (under the roll around
tool box).
Imagine my surprise when I looked at the current prices of
Ebony and realized this $100 billet piece of ebony was probably worth $400 or 500.
Yikes!
As I started to clean up the “hunk” of wood some more, I
realized that the piece I’d cut off was wide enough for board faces. Right away
I thought do I want to make boards out of this material? In part because ebony is so INSANELY expensive
and partly because I generally don’t like to make board faces out of solid
colored woods. But then again, this is ebony we’re talking about. I’ve only
done 2 ebony face boards (small boards BTW) before and thought maybe I’d like
to do them again.
I made a bunch of inlay pieces from the ragged edge of my
cut-off piece. After which I was left with approximately a 40” long x 4” wide
by 1” thick piece of ebony. This works
out roughly to 1.25 board feet. Woodworkerssource.com had a similar sized piece
for $166 (as of Feb 22nd 2012), which works out to approximately
$130 board foot.
I ended up getting 10 board face pieces from the board. I
cut a little too conservatively. I could have gotten more. So 3 pieces were tournie size, so doing a
little bit of simple math, the cost of the tournie material would be $22 per
piece and $12 piece for the 16” long pieces. I was in Woodcraft not too long
ago, and I noticed that they had nicely resawn cocoblo pieces (3” x 24” x 3/8”
thick) for about $42 per piece. This about
the size I used for tournament size cocobolo boards. My cost for such a piece is fortunately not
$42. That’s what I charge for a complete board in 2012.
I roughly priced what ebony is going for per board foot
(hard to do since not too many vendors sell it that way anymore) and
woodworkers.
The other downside to ebony is that it is a bit finicky when
working with reasonably sized pieces. 3 of the 10 boards in the series with
ebony faces went into the “15 for 2” pile due to excessive tear-out, cracking
and all around poor results. Suffice it
to say, it may be few more years, before I tackle ebony again. It’s too expensive and too easy to screw up.
Finishing up with
Finishing (or the 10th time is a charm!)
Most woodworkers will tell you that finishing their project
(i.e applying the stain/sealer/shellac/poly/oil) or whatever finish they choose
is not their favorite thing to do. I am firmly in that camp as well, but this
year, I feel like my finishing technique is FINALLY starting to mature and be
more consistent.
This year, I kind of mixed things up (mixing and matching
previous finishing techniques) and I made the 10th major revision to
the way I finish boards. I also got braver about making my own home grown
finishes and wasn’t afraid to use steel wool more intelligently (in lieu of
sandpaper) in some situations.
I like the boards to have a hint of a mirror-type
reflection, but not look or feel like plastic and still imbue warmth, show the
color of the wood (especially the purple/yellow woods) very brightly, and show
off a depth to its grain. All of these attributes are pretty hard to quantify
in any sort meaningful way. Suffice it
to say – you know it when you see it.
The proverbial oil (linseed or tung)/varnish (or
poly)/naptha (mineral spirits) formula I tried this time around is not by any
means new. It’s a simple, goof-proof wipe on mix that is very popular and is
also commercially available. This time around I went heavy on the linseed oil
and lighter on the varnish/poly and mineral spirits, so the mix was “heavier”
than the commercial wipe-on poly mixes.
This heaviness is what I think gave a bit more depth to the finish (that
and several coats of the finish).
Cleaning up the surface with steel wool proved very straight-forward and
then a light waxing on the buffers with a clean-up re-drill of the board in between,
gave the face of the board that little bit of mirror-type reflection. Other than some Fiddes wax and oil, I don’t
do much for the board bottom. Its left a
little “unfinished” on purpose.
The First 568 Were
Free (or Almost Free)
There is an old expression, “The first one is free, and the
next one will cost you.” It’s surprising how many things that expression can be
applied to. Having now sold over 531 of boards in a 7 year period, I feel it’s
time to apply that axiom to my own little corner of the World Wide Artisan
Cribbage Board Market.
Traditional Apprenticeships of days gone by typically lasted
7 years. I have been working under the
guises of a self-imposed apprenticeship for the last 7 years (2006-2012). As
such, my board prices have been a bit on the low side. Ultimately, I’ve discovered that the cost of
the board isn’t all that relevant (to me) since I essentially don’t make money
anyway. It’s never been about making
money. (see earlier section about minimum wage).
What is relevant is the collective frustration of anyone who
makes and sells a hand-crafted item would share. The real value for what we
make doesn’t equal the value we sell the object for. Having been to many a local Arts & Crafts
Fair, you see this as well – but more seasoned veterans of these venues know
what to ask and get for their wares.
Me…not so much. I usually tell myself the only thing missing
in my pricing model is the number “1” in the front of the price. For example, a
$31 board really should sell for $131. For $31 you can buy a generic cribbage
board that will work perfectly fine but will be totally lacking in character,
color or depth and will be like every other generic cribbage board on the
planet.
I tend to think (to my detriment) that a Cribbage Board is a
family heirloom to be passed down to family members. I have my grandfather’s
board that I learned to play on when I was 7. I have my father’s board that we
use to play on when we would go on our summer camping trips.
So in pricing boards, my single greatest struggle/problem/ongoing-anxiety
is trying to find a price at which boards will sell. I’ve come to realize I
could sell 100 boards for $1 (don’t laugh – I’ve come pretty close) or 1 board
for $100. More than likely, I would probably sell 100 boards for $1. To that
end, over the last seven years, I’ve emphasized selling boards over selling
them at a fair or reasonable market value.
Raising the prices on any boards I make in 2013 and beyond will
likely do several things:
1)
Greatly reduce the number of boards I sell per
year from 100+ to much less.
2)
Challenge me to have greater faith in what I do,
even if no one else does. At the end of day, belief in me is all that matters
and the rest is merely cannon fodder.
3)
Allow me offer free shipping (in the US only,
sorry Canada) on everything I sell. I’ve always wanted to make Free Shipping standard,
but when you sell a board for $5 it costs $8 to ship, free shipping doesn’t
make a whole lot of sense!
4)
Likely put off repeat customers who’ve bought
boards in the past, return to the website to buy another board and then get a
bit of Sticker Shock.
5)
Lessen the pressure (I put on myself) to make
quite so many boards. I’ll probably make just as many boards, but maybe not
feel pressured to do it since I know the sales will slow down significantly.
6)
Make the “15-2” boards look very reasonable (in
terms of cost) when compared to other boards.
As
to the number, 568, that number represents the number of finished boards made up through 2012. There will of course be some
cross-over between that number and boards made in 2013 and beyond. Boards released in 2013 will definitely be following
a new pricing model. So some boards,
which may look similar, will be priced rather differently. And I probably won’t
bother with etsy coupons until Mid-October and then run them through
Mid-December, since this the only time the boards sell on etsy. I’ve tried coupons around Mother’s Day,
Father’s Day, Graduation, all Summer, etc. I’ve tried etsy.com ad words and
there to – saw little success.
Grass Roots Trophy Boards
I
was approached by the President of my local Grass Roots Cribbage Club (Contra
Costa Cribbage Club #374) – Adrian Levy.
He graciously purchased 2 tournament boards and gave both as trophy
boards for the club’s past 2 year Points Tournament Winners. He had small brass
plaques made and mounted on each of the boards.
Adrian gave me the idea of promoting Enumero Tournament Style Boards as
trophy boards – which I now do.
Proving Once Again -
The Universe Secretly Knows What You Want
For those of you who are reading this and are wood-working
nerds, you know that if you spend enough time searching for something, you
might just find it.
During my wife and mine’s ongoing effort to re-locate to a
house with property, we came upon an open house in a semi-remote part of the
county we live in.
When I go to an open house, I always look at 2 things – the
foundation and the electrical supply to the house. Then I sneak a peek in the
garage. I’ve come across woodworker’s garages before, but this one was a little
unusual in that it had some really nice tools.
Long story short, I gave my name and number to the listing agent and mentioned
that if the owner (an older gentleman who was downsizing and moving to our
local retirement community of Rossmoor) had any interest in parting with a few
of his tools, to give me a call. About 2-3 weeks went by and I forgot about it
until he called.
I did procure the ¾ HP Baldor Buffer and all of his
hardwood. I got a nice supply of wood - a
few various exotic pieces, some 2x6 redwood (which I used in cleaning up our deck
railing) and a very nice variegated brownish wood (probably Shedua) which I got
at least 50+ board feet of. The shedua was a bit rough as lumber went (lots of
cracks/checks in the longitudinal direction of the wood), but if there is one
thing I’m good at, it’s working around problems.
Looking a Gift Horse in the Mouth
The
500th commemorative board went to a customer in Oregon along with
some other gratis 500th board commemorative schwag. The customer
then gave the board as a present to someone else. I know this because the
person who received the board as a present (from the original customer) sent me
not one, but two emails, complaining about the hole layout of the board.
Honestly…not sure why this person emailed me. It was gift that was re-gifted to
her. I replied to her first email trying to assuage her confusion about the
hole layout, but then gave up after receiving the 2nd email. She was still confused. I suspect a 3rd email from this
person may come into my mail box in 2013. Maybe she’ll ask for a refund or a
credit? If she does, I will have to confess that her friend received the board
for free and that there simply is nothing to refund and/or credit. The whole
experience was actually a bit of a drag on the 500th board. I was
genuinely excited to give away the 500th board – but you can’t
expect people to always appreciate a gift.
Final Thought for the Year…How Not to Make Money Re-Selling Wood Part
Deux
Back
in September of 2007, I had a short blog post titled “How Not to Make Money
Re-Selling Wood where I described buying 100 pieces of 1 foot long purpleheart “cut-offs”
for $1 per piece and then paying a mere $12.00 for shipping. (The entire order of wood weighed
in at 200 pounds). Well, as history is in the habit of repeating itself, the
late December Woodcraft Sales Flyer had Purpleheart pieces (5” wide, 36” long,
¾” thick) for $7.99 per piece. A 60% discount from their normal price of
$19.99 per piece. So I waited patiently for
the sale to commence on Dec 29th. I put my order in on Dec 28th,
9:30 PST – figuring that the Woodcraft
website was on EST (which it was) and ordered 50 pieces. The shipping came to a
grand total of $20. And here’s the kicker. Woodcraft has brick and mortar
stores in California – but I never get charged California sales tax, saving me
about another $40 or so. This time, FedEx gets the privilege of delivering
257.3 pounds of wood to my front door. It’s only in 3 bundles this time.
