JohnBarton

Truly exceptional! Love the colors and the design. Very elegant and old world.

for some reason I can't view your images. Can you attach them in different way? John

Very Very Cool - The best camera cases I have ever seen!

P.S. Don't be dependent just on Ebay. Use ETSY, Amazon, Yahoo, MySpace, Facebook, and whatever other free or nearly free places that there are too advertise what you do. Think of the web as the sky with people drifting by on clouds who happen to drfit past one of your billboards or shops and say "gee, I want to look at this person's stuff a little more". It's a lot of work but it's worth it and if you set it up right then your MySpace etc..... places can be practically timeless as far as the information presented is concerned. I don't have any of that yet since I am so specialized in pool cue cases. I have plenty of business from the billiard world. But I plan to have a presence in those places down the road and if I were in the general leathergoods business then I would have them right now. Unless of course we were so good that that we were swamped with orders. :-) Some cue makers I know don't even have email and they have year's worth of orders. They earned their rep networking the old fashioned way, by putting a lot of rubber to the road until they got established.

My thoughts on Ebay. Ebay allows you to have a platform that is truly equal where you can be as visible as you want to be depending on how much work you put in. You aren't beat out by the fact that someone has a bigger advertising budget, a bigger store, a better location, is cozy with the market owners, gets preferential treatment (although I am sure some would dispute this), and so on. Want to know the POWER of EBAY? This is why EBAY works, it is one of the only places where a seller can buy an item from one person at one price from another seller and sell the EXACT SAME item to another person at a higher price in the same "place". Except that unlike the real world these cyber-stores do not exist side by side UNLESS the viewer positions them that way. These stores all EXIST in same space stacked like a deck of cards that the user shuffles through using searches to find what they want. Change the search criteria a little bit and viola you have a whole new set of shops to look at. So Ebay is PERFECT for the small dealer to compete with the big dealer because (given certain rules) you can say just about anything you want to say about your product, you can compare it to anyone else's, you can put up as many pictures and go as in-depth as you like. And chances are that if you put the effort in that you will get the buyers who like what you have to say and what you do. This is because when someone on Ebay types in "custom leather belt" they are "just looking" and how well you do your job determines what chance you have to get that business. You can also see where the majority of your competition is at on price and this includes not only those who sell imported goods but also those who sell goods that they themselves make domestically. Here you can make a decision to be a follower or a leader. You can fall in-line with what everyone else charges or you can value your work at a higher level. The thing is that you will need to justify in a non-defensive and positive way why your prices are higher. This is the magic in the whole thing. IF you can connect with people's sense of value then you will find that Ebay can be productive for you. In essence your goods are right there right beside everyone else's, the customer comes to you and it's your job to hold them there. At that moment when they are reading your advertisement/auction they are yours with no interuption. Ebay brought them to you and what you do with them is up to you. Some people will ONLY buy on price. No biggie, they aren't your target unless you have the lowest price in which case you need do nothing except post your prices. Other people are looking for a bargain, which is something good for a lower than it would normally cost. Some people (surely the minority on Ebay) are looking for the best no matter what the price. Your job is to make the bargain hunters believe that your goods are a bargain at twice the price and to speak to those who are looking for quality. The last thing is that on Ebay you will get incidental business. This business comes from people who were looking for something else and somehow ended up at your space. They didn't intend to buy a new leather purse but dammit your design is so compelling and $400 is so much better than $1000 for a new Coach purse. This happens frequently because Ebay makes it's best guesses when someone is looking for something and often your ads will show up beside something completely unrelated. So, for all of it's fees and rules Ebay is still the world's largest electronic marketplace and is still the place many people start when looking to buy something. I use ebay for research for example when I want to look for things - sellers are motivated to provide good descriptions and historical information so I can often find out things about things that I didn't find elsewhere on the web. In the course of that research I often end up buying something :-( (usually something I don't need) So treat Ebay as you would any other marketplace and balance the fees against the benefits of being there. One HUGE adantage you have over people who sell premade goods is that you can pad your pricing to make up for the fees much easier than they can. Above I mentioned that on Ebay you can buy from one seller and sell at a higher price to another person all on Ebay. While that is true it's also true that everyone has access to the first seller as well which means that often the price on any given item will settle to a certain level due to competition. Since just about everyone here makes what they sell there is no competition for EXACTLY what you sell. Thus if so-and-so's hand made purse is $100 and yours is $110 then no one will care about the difference in price because both purses are different and each is unique. So you built in $10 to cover the extra fees and no one is the wiser, nor do they care. And BE HAPPY when you pay Ebay and PayPal's fees. Why? Because it means you SOLD something!!!!

Very sorry for your loss. If this helps you, this is something I wrote about my cat when he was killed, One Cool Cat

Thank you and can I say that you are responsible for me spending several hours of my life at your website(s) last year marveling at the creations you bring to life?

I used to sell on Ebay. I haven't sold anything there for a long time. I was browsing it just yesterday though and there seems to be a lot f competition in hand tooled leathergoods. I know I wouldn't sell my cases there because the fees to list at my starting prices would be around $2-5 a listing. It's probably worth having a store though and running a few auctions a month. Back when I did Ebay a lot I didn't really have enough permanent stuff to have an Ebay store but the fees seemed reasonable back then. Almost everything I ever listed was listed in true auction style at no reserve and that's pretty risky. Even at that I made it to PowerSeller with what I did have for sale, mostly refurbished cue cases and custom pool cues. One of the BEST sales I had was the Worthless Pool Cue Sale. I had about 50 cues that had been bought from a new China supplier and they turned out to be junk. Wraps coming off, warped and so on. So I sorted them out and listed them at no reserve and had shipping on each one at $10. I figured if I got $5 for each one then it would be great. They started moving for $15-$25 bucks each and people actually liked them. I was getting freat feedback on these cues as well as good publicity for the title of the auction and the fact that I was advertising them as junk. All in all I made nearly $800 on these cues. I tell you what though, I see Ebay as a place where you can reach a huge audience and say what you want to say. You live and die on Ebay with two things, how good your pitch is and how good your pictures are. Doing your auctions the right way and answering any and all possible questions in the auction will gain you repeat customers. The great thing about Ebay is that you can learn to write your auctions in such a way as to get found in a lot of searches and that get your auction in front of a lot of viewers. I generally opted for the lowest cost insertion but always paid extra for the supersize/highlight option - it was like .75cts more. I believe that my listings were right at $2 per and I almost always did the 10 day listing. So I guess if you make budget and say that you are going to spend x-amount "advertising" on Ebay then it might turn out really well for you. If you are going to not put some decent effort into your auctions then I'd advise you not to do it because you will get eaten alive by the competition there.

There is no real set pattern for cue cases. The most basic cue case is the envelope style which is essentially a piece of leather folded over with a flap. You need to put something in to divide the parts from on another. This case that I have shown is a tube case. Tube cases are defined by having a rigid core surrounded by a leather exterior. There are two types of tube cases, multiple tubes and single tubes. Multiple tube cases are made of a bunch of fabric lined small tubes of generally two diameters for the butt and shafts of the cue. Single tube cases are made of one large tube with a fabric interior making up the dividing compartments. I build the interior first and then the exterior around it. To me the most important thing is to protect the cues. How much protection is needed is a subject of debate among cue case makers and users. My personal view on it is that the case should primarily protect against impact and accidental removal and abrasion. On asecdondary level the case should protect against excess moisture and sudden temperature change. So with the in mind I will start with the fabric and makes sure that it is soft and strong and does not absorb moisture. Then I put in a layer of foam rubber to be a cushion. Basically I like the interior to be soft and inviting. One of my customers for another line of cases we make called it like a lovable hug. He even trademarked the phrase to use to describe my interior on his brand of cases. A lot of beginning cue case makers focus too much on the exterior and neglect the interior in my opinion. My philosophy has always been to perfect the interior (an ongoing process) and build out from the center. You can find a list of case makers to study at www.jbcases.com at the bottom. Having said all that there is someone who says they have a pattern for a cue case. I think his business name is Bid Daddy leather or something like that. I don't know whether the pattern is any good or not. I am not going to release any of ours right now because we worked hard to get the measurements right and I need to have some secrets :-) Here is a good place to start if you want to go straight to the top of the envelope case style www.jacksandsaps.com

It is. More like a coin purse size.

I charged $800 for it.

What better way to protect $9000 worth of pool cues than with dragon scale armor?

I wish Jack would put up the latest Justis/Ron Ross collaboration that was shown on AZ Billiards. It's just sick with Ron Ross'es work on it and of course Jack never ever makes a mistake in the construction. You probably saw it there. I can't imagine what that case went for. John

How do you network with people? Talk to them, have your cards ready to give out, be enthusiastic about what you do without being overbearing. Listen to them and remember what they do. When an opportunity comes up to send someone their way who needs what they do then do it. Where do you network? Everywhere that you end up in conversation with people. You could be in the line at the grocery store and the person behind you could be the one who orders a $100 checkbook cover from you. What do you say to get them interested in what you do? "I shape skin" :-) The way to look at it is not that you have to say something to get them interested. You just need to be interesting as a person. I like to talk about how fascinating it is for me to look at a piece of leather and imagine what I could do with it. How do you build trust? Do what you say you are going to do and do it better than expected.

I didn't catch that Rusty. Well then I guess my beef is with the maker or whoever is describing them like that on the other site as well. I am sure that side by side that the reason ours is priced higher would be apparent. However you know that on the internet you can say anything you want and make everything out to be what it's not. I need to talk to you about your handles by the way. I can show you how to do them another way that is more comfortable for the user and still easy to do.

Thanks! If nothing else I have just learned how to cast an embossing plate. :-)

Well, while these words are true they don't take into account that those who make the goods worse and cheaper don't advertise the fact that they are worse and cheaper. It is unreasonable to expect all consumers to become experts on quality when it comes to judging the products that they would like to own. Consumers who ONLY buy on price deserve what they get I suppose. But what about the ones who are looking at quality and they have two sellers who both claim to have top quality but only one really does? I consider it unfair practice when sellers start with the embellishments bordering on untruth to build up their stuff. Sort of like shooting wildlife from helicopters. :-) I mean, at some point there has got to be some kind of trust between what is claimed and what is received. I confess to being prey several times in my life though. I guess in light of this thread, the one on pricing, and especially for the one on luxury brands that this quote is a fitting one to pair with yours, Gucci Family Slogan "Quality is remembered long after the price is forgotten. "

Using our laser I can make embossing plates out of wood and some linen based resin sheets. It would be similar to making the Craftaid tapoffs except that it would be the pattern in reverse. I like that idea. Do the same design in embossed, lasered, and hand tooled along with what kind of time and effort went into doing it. I have to say that sometimes a lasered design can have a lot of time involved in it. I can tell you that I often spend hours doing stuff for a case that will be laser cut or laser engraved that require lots of tweaking and trial and error until it's right. And often this is all done for a one-off use. The upside, like anything, is that the next time something similar comes up then it goes much faster. But yeah, I think that your idea is a winner and the way to go, better to compare apples to apples instead of only using images of different items.

I am not sure that you point, which is well taken, has to do with the topic. I am not sure but I think that Jaguar or Rolls Royce says something about hand fitted interiors or doors or something. Something about what they do is labor intensive with a lot of attention to detail and done by superior craftsmen. If Toyota had said that their interiors were "hand-fitted" simply because at some point a human being touched them and the purpose of saying it was to make people think that they were done with as much care as Rolls Royce interiors then it would be misleading. I think that is a comparable example, at least as best I can come up with to fit your car analogy. What I am really looking for in this thread is just to see if we can come up with terms that most of us agree on would be proper descriptions for different styles of decoration. I don't consider any for of decoration to be either good or bad or one any "worse" or "better" than any other. For example to me an artfully placed decal is better than a crappily tooled image. I have seen some amazing stuff done with a laser engraver by people who take the time to understand and operate their laser in such a way that it function's like a brush in the hand of an artist. And I think that someone with embossing plates can make some interesting designs. All I want though is either NO MENTION of what method it is - which allows the product to stand on it's own without regard to how it got there - or, proper descriptions of what method was used so that the customer is not misled into thinking that one method equals another in terms of the knowledge and talent it took to bring it about. I can take a pattern image, say a celtic knot, and laser engrave it, make a plate and emboss, and also tool it. Only the tooled version can show true diversity of character and depth through subtle touches. Let's say I made a contest where the folks here were challenged with tooling a celtic knot but were not allowed to add any extra decoration to it, just the knot with beveled edges and the surface texture could be flat or dimpled. You and I both know that even with those limitations we would see a bunch of knots that would blow us away. My entire point is that if I made a plate of the knot and embossed it then there is no way that this should be judged on the same level or made out to be equal to the knots that were hand tooled. Anyway, I think we are on the right track and I will definitely be using some of the information from this thread. Thanks everyone and if you have something to add to it please do. Hopefully my "education" page will serve as something you can use for your own marketing - anyone is free to copy and use my information once I publish it on the web as long as you provide a link back to my page.

I have been in China way too long. When I reread what I wrote it comes across like Chinglish. :-( The same thing happened to me when I lived in Germany.

Ed, I am HUGE advocate of having a repository where QUALITY is defined by experts in the subject. There is an organization called the ACA which stands for American Cuemaker's Association. I used to belong to it as a merchandising member. Back in the mid-90s I was attending a meeting of the ACA and one of the members was pitching a new organization called the ABM which stood for American Billiard Manufacturer's Associaton. The meat of the pitch was that anyone belonging to the ABM would get to put little red,white, and blue ABM stickers on their products. I stood up and said that the ACA didn't need to be a part of the ABA because a little sticker that amounted to "made in USA" wasn't really what most customers are looking for. I said that the ACA should make it's own sticker that identify's the cues bearing it as having the quality standard as set by the ACA. I said they should make a poster that can hang in every pool room and billiard supply place that clearly defines what quality in a pool cue is and make sure that it's clearly tied to the ACA's little sticker. Who better to define what makes a good pool cue than the collective members of a cuemaking guild whose average cue costs more than a $1000? Did they ever do it? Nah. Nor did the ABM fly either. Instead they just spend their time complaining about not being able to compete with decaled imports. I would LOVE to see something on this board or somewhere that takes leather goods and dissects them to define what QUALITY is in terms of construction. The upside of it is that there would be a defintive library of images and descriptions that could be used as a resouce by all. Any of us could link to it and point our customers to a place where experts agree on what the standard of quality should be for various types of goods. The consumer would get a good education and leatherworkers and even factories would have a guide to what they "should" be doing if they want to meet the standard of quality set by the best in the industry. I bet that with enough of us linking to the resource that it would come up in the top ten on just about any leather goods related search which would be awesome. Because then literally millions would read it year after year. So yeah, great idea, where and how do we start? Should I send you a bunch of random bags bought at the market here? Getting back to the idea that 80% of department store bags are made as badly as what you find at the street vendors. There is no doubt that there is a lot of overlap but what I got from your point was that you meant that the so-called high end bags such as Prada and Coach weren't any better than what you find on the street. I have inspected a lot of these bags very carefully in both the high end places and at street markets from Turkey to China. I am sure that you are like me in that you are always looking at handbags, briefcases, luggage, backpacks and so on to get ideas or compare what you do to theirs. It truly pains me to see a purse selling for $3000 when I put so much more into my cue cases and feel guilty if I ask for $600. But getting back to the point, especially since I have been in China I see the flaws and shortcuts in the street versions (knockoffs). So while neither bag may be up to yours or my quality standards one is generally truly better than the other. A $1000 Tumi briefcase is well done whereas the $100 knockoff is not so well done but with just a cursory inspection it seems to be. I too think it would have been good had she said something about the fact that there are still folks who make luxury items on a small scale. Upon reflection though I believe that her point pertains more to the fashion world where things aren't as much about utility as they are about extravagance. She is speaking of the type of shops that cater to the wealthy and ultra wealthy and who refuse to allow their brand to be splattered on just anything. Those shoes with red soles might be very well made and might be comfortable but the reason that wealthy people buy them is for the prestige of owning them not because they are the best shoes. The best shoes in the world might be made by Gepetto the shoemaker out of his house in Orlando but he sells his for $50 a pair and the red sole guy sells his for $1000 a pair and makes buying a pair of shoes an "experience". Anyway, again thanks for the video, I will be ordering her book.

Love the knotwork. I really like to see clean pieces like this.

My first thought on looking at this has to do with utility. I would want to keep whatever is in the compartments dry and secure. Someone that goes exploring often finds themselves out in rain, fog, snow, mud,etc... They often end up upside down so I would make so that the lid on the main compartment fits over the lip completely like a box instead of using a flap. Then the only other thing I see is that the holder for the flashlight and I guess a knife on the other side if I see it correctly should be done in such a way as to insure that those items cannot come out on their own. Either through a pretty solid pressure fit or through some sort of retainer. Looks like a nice strong piece. Chas Clements used to tell me he builds his stuff to be Safari Grade, meaning it can be taken to the jungle and depended on not to fail.