Thank you, Sarah!
The Benchmade pieces are always better, and always will be. A lot of folks are put off by not buying a 'brand' name for several reasons - similar to going to McDonalds for a burger and fries. With the brand name, you always know you have a reasonably consistent product backed by a large company. Like a Big Mac, it may not be the best burger, but you know what you're going to get.
I also think there is some comfort in slick web sites, nice ads in the magazines, impressive catalogs and the like. The factory made high end has that, the handmade stuff does not. Its a bit of a leap-of-faith to commission a benchmade piece. You have to have absolute trust in your selling dealer to do that, and that dealer has to have the integrity and experience to know whom to route your order to.
High end cabinentmakers are terrible businessmen. Probably the worst I've ever seen. They abhor electronic communication (computers, email, web sites, even photography). have no idea how to market, and think having a fax machine and color photocopier is high tech. They mange money poorly, and usually have poor communications skills with the public. However, they know how to build things correctly, pick lumber, and have huge pride in workmanship. Each piece is one of their 'babies' and they always want to know if the customer was happy with it. One of my cabinentmakers (Mark Emirzian) has a sequential serial number he stamps into every piece me makes. He started at number 1, and no matter if its a mirror or a Secretary Desk every piece gets stamped in the order he made it. I think that after 27 years he's up around number 3,000 right now.
When you have production "brand name" pieces you have to pay for the layers. All that web/catalog/advertising costs a lot of money, with support staff to manage it. The overhead is much higher, as are the costs of production machinery vs. hand tools. So the end result is the overhead in brand-name pieces is considerably higher, meaning less of each dollar goes into the piece itself.
For example, high speed 5- axis CNC router used to cut dovetails (and other operations) is a $ 200K machine that usually requires hiring a computer programmer on staff to run it. A backsaw and a pencil only cost $ 25, but the person using it has to know how to hand-cut dovetails, and if he knows the craft can do it almost as quickly as the machines.
I showed the Councill piece to John Buchanan when he was in my store bringing me some new pieces late on Friday, July 3rd. He looked it all over then asked me how much it cost? When I told him, his eyes got big and he said 'I can build you a real one for that kind of money'. I've no doubt that he could!
Duane Collie
Straight answers from thirty-six years in the business.
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