Still more Lidded...

[Ed Davidson]

Holy Land Olivewood with a 38mm Poppy Jasper cabochon, measuring about 4" across and 1.75" tall.

[Chris Barton]

Hi Ed,


Another great piece. I really like your work. If you were to put one of these type pieces up for sale how would you price it? I ask because I get many requests for my bowls and everyone says they want to "pay what they are worth" but, I'm not really sure what that would be. I have seen bowls in some of the regional fairs and in gift shops and they are priced handsomely. A relatively small (< 8" diameter) bowl of a single wood is often priced around $60. Is that reasonable?

Chris

[Ed Davidson]

Thanks Chris...

About 95% of everything I sell is through consignment, so there's a 30% to 40% commission involved. With that in mind, and taking into account that I've got about $10 of raw materials and an hour's labor in this piece, the price would come out to between $110 and $125...here's the math:

$30/hr x 2.2 O/H = $66 + $10 materials = $76 / .70 = $108.57 or / .60 = $126.67

The 2.2 O/H figure = 120% overhead, intended to cover the amortized costs of my shop and tools, consumables (sand paper) and my non-turning work time...design, traveling to consignment shops, working sales, etc...

A lot of turners rationalize that they have no overhead (house is paid for/free shop, tools paid for, etc...), but by doing that, they are cheating themselves and not being fair with other turners who are trying to make a living at this.

Another observation...dollar for dollar, I'll generally sell 100 times more in bottle stoppers and pens than nice boxes and vessels. This may be related to the area I'm living and selling in (Colorado Springs), where we get a lot of Texas tourist...not that Texans are a cheap lot :-)

[Chris Barton]

Thaks Ed! I have a theory about why folks tend to go for the small stuff. I think that the bowls usually catch their eyes in a display and when they look at the price they get coold feet. They really want a bowl but, often think that they aren't ready to paid the asking price but, then see the pens and wine toppers. Oddly, they would rather spend $25 for a wine topper that probably took 15-20 minutes and $2 in overhead to produce than the $100 bowl. They rationalize that they got a bargain when in reality they would get more for their money in a bowl...


What do you think?

Chris