The very best figured walnut. Is 50-100+/bd ft ever reasonable?

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Originally Posted by Joel Gelman

oh.... I thought I posted this in Lumber Yard.

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The "Lumber Yard", is not about lumber. It's just a discussion area for Contributors that cannot be seen by non-contributors.

For highly figured material like that, folks who specialize in lutherie materials are worthy of searching. I saw that Hearne was mentioned...they have an entire room in the big barn dedicated to instrument grade materials including highly figured wood. Be prepared to be sitting down when you get to the prices for this stuff, no matter where you end up buying it.

It could be worse. At least you're not trying to buy a piece of "The Tree". A one-of-a-kind, quilted Mahagony tree. Last I saw, that runs about $13,600 a board foot.

I have used some beautiful wood from Hibdon Hardwoods in St. Louis MO. 25 years ago you could buy beautiful big boards there by the board foot. They have moved away from selling lumber and sell sets of wood for specific instrument parts. Backs and side sets, tops, neck blanks, fretboard blanks etc. Some beautiful figured walnut passes through Missouri Pacific Lumber. Their office is adorned with very pretty wood. They sell in large quantities.

Yep. Whether it's worth it or not is up to you. It costs what it costs, and the fact that it was already sold before you got it says the price was fair.

The thing I see... Truly exceptional stuff doesn't come up often. If it speaks to you, you buy it, because it may never come up again. I was bidding on some very dark, very special, high figured quartersawn oak, and it was well over $100/bd-ft when I bowed out.

I read many places that birdseye figure in Maple is only in about 1% of the lumber.
The scarcity of figure and grain patterns will always be a price driver

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Originally Posted by Richard Coers

Giant step from $35 to $100

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Giant step from "available in the lumber yard" to "the very best available," too...