Templates are Selling Well - Who Knew?

I offer cribbage board drilling templates for sale. They are made of 3/16" or 1/4" thick plastic cloned off my existing metal templates or made from scratch using my template maker. In a sudden and unexpected surge of interest in cribbage board templates, I've sold 3 templates this week and I am working on a 4th custom template as per a customer's request. I figured if I sold one template a year, that would be cool.

If I had one pet peeve in this universe, it would be craftspeople who make and sell cribbage boards with sloppy, misaligned hole patterns. We as humans, simply cannot drill several hundred very tiny holes in perfect alignment. I don't buy the argument that it makes the board look more authentic, more hand-made.

My wife wonders if I'm hurting my own cribbage board business by selling templates and I don't think so. There are an estimated 2 million people who play cribbage on a regular basis. To date, I've sold 8 templates.

Clawing My Way Up the Search Engines

Like the hundreds of millions of other people selling "stuff" in Cyberspace, my website suffers from the common malady of not being noticed. In order to be noticed on the Web, you have to be on the first page or second page of Google or Yahoo search results.

So then the question arises, how do people find my website? About half the time, it's from other Websites who have graciously provide a link to my site. And the other half of the time, people come to the website base on a link provided by the Search Engines from Google and Yahoo. When someone searches on the words "cribbage boards" on Yahoo, my website shows up on page 1 of the results. On google, I'm still stuck in the never world of page 2 of the search results.

On average, I get about 7 unique visitors a day or around 210 visitors a month. I'm still not convinced that a website is the best way to sell my cribbage boards. The couple of times I've sold cribbage boards at a local craft show have shown me that people like to touch and feel cribbage and chess boards, and thus my boards sell well at the local craft show.

In general, it takes about 500-700 unique visits to generate one cribbage board sale. The results are about the same on etsy.com, although buyers seem more focused when buying off of etsy.com, since it's a website dedicated to all type of handmade and hand-crafted items.

Go by Bike!

Stop by www.etsy.com

A couple of weeks ago I read an article in our local paper about an Ebay-like, Artisan friendly website called www.etsy.com. I checked the site out and saw that other folks sell their Cribbage and Chess boards on it, so I thought I’d give it a whirl. I like the fact it’s only 20 cents to list (much cheaper than ebay) and works with Paypal. It’s simple to use and easy to browse on. Like Ebay, it has buyer based feedback system.

I’ve listed a couple of dozen boards on it and have gotten my first sale already. It’s especially easy to browse a given person’s listing, sort by price, etc.

My most expensive, beautiful board to date

If you take one glance at the picture of the Siarnaq board (Saturn Moon Series), you realize the grain pattern is quite striking. I feel it’s the most beautiful board I’ve made to date. This board set the bar pretty high in terms of how striking I can make a cribbage board.

Ironically, this was the first board where I stumbled onto the idea of re-sawing cocobolo strips and book matching them to make interesting and pleasing patterns. This particular board is triple book-matched for the 3 inside strips and double book-matched on the 2 outside strips. This is the only board that I ever made with this combination of book-matching. It is also the very first board I made with Cocobolo. So, in terms of my personal history of cribbage board making, it’s a very important cribbage board (to me).

Every time I come up with a new look or idea for a crib board, I’m smitten with that board for a short time, but then my infatuation fades and I move on. Not so with this board. I still love the way it looks and get excited every time I see it. But, I’m quick to remind myself that I make boards to sell and share with the world. If I’ve succeeded in making an exceptionally beautiful board, then of course I should charge accordingly, but still within reason.

A 52 Board Release - All At Once

I decided to go ahead and just release all 52 boards at once, instead of adding them ad-hoc. Doing so many boards at once made it easier when it came time to photograph the boards (although some of the pictures came out fuzzy and I will re-shoot them), if need be. 50 of the 52 boards are part of 6 new series and I FINALLY finished the Saturn Moon Series with the addition of the last remaining board and added the last board to the "7 Time Tour de France" Series. As always, I try and keep my prices reasonable and you get a significant break on shipping costs if you buy more than one board. You may notice that the purpleheart I use in my boards is quite "purple". I tried something new this time around. As soon as I finished the boards, I put them out in the sun for a couple of hours. This did 2 things. It let the oil/wax finish soak in nicely and it oxidized or turned the colors of the wood a little darker and a little richer. I also photographed all the boards with the pegs that are included with the board. I have added (4) 4 players boards - in the Mercury 13 Series. Of those 4 boards, the "Truhill" board is probably the nicest. With this board, I used a thicker cherry boarder and I think the proportions worked out better (given the large size of the board). And despite my best efforts to the contrary there are some "Postpono" or 'Factory Seconds" boards. There are 2 Postpono boards in the "A Seven Course Meal of Extinct Candy Bars" series and there 3 Postpono boards in the "Apollo Lunar Modules" series. As always, Postpono boards are significantly discounted.

In the Home Stretch...

It's been a busy couple of months. I've finished gluing up 50+ cribbage boards which will be in several series. The only thing left to do on these 50+ cribbage boards is sanding, drilling and tapping the cap holes and final finishing. The chess boards (10-18) are almost done as well. I was going to use IPE as the outermost edging material for these boards, but decided IPE is better for the chess squares than edges. The IPE boards are quite heavy as well. So for Chess boards 10-18, I will be using Walnut for the outer most edge. Chess Boards 19-27 will be similar in terms of the woods used in boards 10-18, but instead of Maple for the white squares, I will be using Curly Maple. I paid way too much for some Curly Maple scrap pieces, but I think those boards will turn out nice. I've been resisting the temptation to start gluing up new cribbage board faces until I completely finished this current batch of 50+ cribbage boards. The current batch is devoid of any tournament style boards, so the next batch will be mostly tournament boards. Also, I'm planning a special "19" shaped board (think of the classic "29" shaped cribbage board, but instead of being shaped in the number "29", its shaped in the number "19". ) These should be ready shortly before the Holidays. I made the template some time ago. It's a pretty big board, but I think it will be fun board to release around the Holiday Season.