JohnBarton

Ed, Thank you for the link to the video. I agree with almost everything that Dana Thomas has said. I especially agree with her assertion that counterfeit goods fund bad people and bad practices. When I go to the accessories market in Guangzhou I see that you can buy metal logos from a 100 vendors with any brand name you want. Personally if they would make the counterfeiting of goods punishable by death then that would stop most of it right now. But unfortunately too many people see it as a victimless crime. I love her description of the "purse party" women when she called them the drug dealers of fashion. About the only thing I disagree with Dana on is that individual craftspeople have disappeared. Maybe they are not high profile but they are there. People like you and most of the folks on this board. Workshops like mine with a small number of people doing custom work, and high end boutique brands that don't sell out to the larger marketing machine. I think that craftspeople are around and that with the advent of the internet the playing field is somewhat leveled for them to be able to bring their handcrafted goods to the world.

Where do get the statistic that "80% of the high end products are not produced differently from the counterfeited merchandise" ? I haven't watched the video and can't comment on it's content yet. What you have said above though doesn't ring true in my experience. What is my experience you might ask? It's in the making of leather goods, primarily cue cases, through my own small shop and through workshops and factories in Germany, Turkey, The Czech Republic, Taiwan and now China. I see a lot of myth and misconception on this issue. Seriously. I can appreciate your point of view because I have been there as the single craftsperson working on the item and I can also speak from the point of view as the person who has goods made in a factory with 20 people working on my products. Now, the question is what is "high end"? Well made products are not necessarily "high end" and expensive brand name products are not always "well made". That's pretty much a given and is the source of a lot of the market myths and also the ability to shape perception with clever marketing. You are right about education. The thing is that marketers know that people prefer to be entertained and flattered on a social scale and that they prefer honesty on a individual level. That is why brands like Gucci don't market the "quality" in their bags but instead the "lifestyle" that Gucci represents. Now coming back to your 80% comment, it's not true in my experience, easily 95% of counterfeit items bearing name brands are not made near to the quality of the well made "high end" brand bags. Where I go to shop at the leather market in Guangzhou, China there are wholesale markets filled with factory stores selling knockoffs and there are several levels of suppliers. The top level is in a fancier indoor mall where the samples are fairly well done but when you look closely you can see several key issues. The midrange level is in a less fancy indoor mall which is mainly filled with domestic brands and some knockoffs and the lowest level is an open storefront type market which is mostly comprised of factory stores and dealers who buy from those factory stores. The quality of the goods at the first two levels is decent but not what I would consider to be excellent. The quality at the lower level is appalling. However sometimes you find a domestic brand whose goods are original designs (mostly) and whose quality is very good. But this is the exception rather than the rule. The myth is that the knockoffs and the originals are all made on the same line. They aren't. There are thousands of factories in China who are busy knocking off brand name bags and even worse they are just plain stealing the brand name itself by plopping it on designs that the brand name doesn't even do. These factories have nothing to do with the owner of the brand name and are not authorized to make any goods bearing that name. Now, having said all that there ARE factories that will offer you several quality levels and are not shy about it. They will show three bags that "look" the same but have three different prices and the highest priced one will be well made. The reason it will be well made is because it will have been made using the most experienced sewers, turners, and other people that the factory has and made at a slower pace with much more quality control. Those knockoffs are virtually indistinguishable from the real thing and I suspect that they are often mixed in with the real thing by high end retailers. But I guarantee you that the best quality and lowest quality aren't coming off the same line at the same time and in my experience aren't even made by the same people. We all hear stories of "real" goods that leak out of the official factory. In that case the goods are identical to the ones on the store shelf. They are also priced much higher than the knockoff you find on the street. So this brings us to the idea that you lose something when the goods aren't made by just one person from start to finish. Yes you do lose something but it's not prestige or quality, you lose some control over your goods. The reason is that it's nearly impossible to inspect every detail on every bag that your people make because by doing so you are spending nearly as much time as if you had done the work yourself. So at some point you have trust that the stitching was done the way you want it, that the rivets were set correctly, and so on. And the more people you add to the process the more opportunity for mistake there are because not every person working for you shares your passion for what you do - you would hope they do, but unless they are also sharing in the profit or have some other benefit then they are unlikely to see it as anything more than just a job. That doesn't mean however that well made and high end goods can't come from shops which have more than one person doing the work. We all know that some shops excel at putting out very well made and high end goods despite the fact that they have a whole slew of folks working on them. This company makes some of the very best bags on the planet Earth, i have used (abused) mine for 8 years now and not even a stitch has come loose anywhere on it www.timbuk2.com - these are custom production bags. Anyway, I can wax on for hours on these topics as I find them to be highly interesting (I spend a lot of time in my head thinking about how the world works). I started in this business when I was 20 and was visiting factories when I was 21. I worked on an assembly line for Kimberly Clark, have been in the military, been a professional diver and traveled the world. My views on a lot of things have changed over the years as my real world experience on both sides has grown. Due to the way I grew up in what can best be described as a modern nomad I would like to think that I came to business without prejudice and also a lot of naivete'. I often find that the facts are far more complex and interesting than myth and stereotype. China is proving to be far deeper and complex than I thought it would be. There is no stereotype of belief about China and Chinese production that is not true and false at the same time due to the depth of this culture.

Very good introduction to marketing on a small scale. One thing that was missing is networking to peers and suppliers in all aspects of your life. You have to make sure that everyone you deal with knows what you do. Not in an obnoxious way that makes you "that guy" at the party no wants to talk to because you like a advertisement every time you open your mouth. But work on ways to converse about you do that educates and interests people and you will find that those you deal with a lot will end up being your customers or bringing you customers.

When I got out of the military I stayed in Germany and ended up living there for ten years. That is where I started my first cue case business. Then I moved back to the USA to get married in 1999 and ended up selling the trademark (and business) in 2003. From 2003 to 2006 I worked for a former customer as sort of a consultant/guy who knows how to run a business sort of person. In 2005 my boss asked me if I would like to go to China for a while and be the person who does quality control, product design, and sourcing. I jumped at it and have been here since late 2006. While here I really got the bug again to do cases and decided that I would build a shop and see what I make of it. So I still have a day job working for my former customer and I have my shop. One good thing about the shop is that it allows me to experiment and develop new production lines and as a result I have introduced around 30 new and improved models to the mass production lineup of cue cases. So instead of the usual crap from China I can at least be proud that my mass production cases are of pretty good quality for the money. I figure that one way or the other there are going to be cue cases on the market for $5 to $300 that come from China so I might as well offer a version that is well made. As far as the rock and a hard place goes I see your point but I don't really see it that way for what I do. I just price the cases according to what I want to make on them. One of my partner factories also builds cue cases and their top of the line tooled/painted cue cases are on offer for $1900 and $1700 respectively. My cost to buy those cases is pretty high. And still they sell. Each one is unique in both the theme and the construction and since May last year we have sold around 11 of them. You can see them here: http://www.jbcases.com/gallery/main.php?g2_itemId=2602 I think that most people who judge things based on the merit of the work don't much care where it comes from. They base their buying decision on what level of satisfaction they are going to get out of owning that item. Anyone with half a brain can find out or figure up the cost of materials and time needed to make just about anything, especially items like ours. It's not really about that as much as it about who can provide what the customer wants and what makes the customer feel good. In cue case making I have developed a reputation for taking on pretty much whatever anyone wants to make. That brings me a lot of business from customers who can't get that from other cue case makers. I can afford to do this because I treat my shop as a research and development center for cue cases. Other case makers don't have the luxury to offset the development of new patterns and methods with revenue from mass production projects. So this gives me a relatively unique service to offer to cue case customers that transcends the China stigma. I can tell you this though, my goal is always to deliver more value and a case that people wouldn't have minded paying more for. Not to lowball anyone but instead just to provide more case for the money. So with that in mind my price will always reflect what I want to earn based on what I think I am worth but it will never be artificially higher just because I can get it. I just can't do it. If I buy a piece of ostrich for example and it costs me $200 then I don't put a markup on top of that just because it's an "exotic" skin. If I did the same case in Ostrich print for $475 then the one in real Ostrich would cost $675. I hope that kind of puts it into perspective how I approach pricing on my own goods. The end result of this is that often my cases end up being less expensive than comparable items from my competitors. This is not done deliberately to undercut them but is instead purely based on the fact that I am totally content with the profit I have on the cases as it's just what I need to grow and it's win/win for me and my customers. But, having said that I am not above playing hardball in the production/semi-production arena as well. One of my competitors literally has ripped me off for millions through design theft over the past 12 years or so. So this year I brought out a new line of cases that competes with their "new" line and it offers far more value for about a 20% lower price. I am taking less profit on these cases simply to vanquish their line as that brings me a small measure of satisfaction. They could crush me if the want to though and offer their version below cost since they sell mainly low end cases for the bulk of their revenue. So far it hasn't come to that and I only build the cases to order anyway so each one is paid for before I build it. Well I sure write a lot for someone who has a lot on his plate. Sorry for the long winded responses.

Jack Justis is THE MAN - Right now he has no equal when it comes to getting top dollar for his work. You asked about what the case would cost if it were built all in the USA with USA labor. Here you go, $3200 and it's yours. I was only off in my estimate by around $1500 :-) http://forums.azbilliards.com/showthread.php?t=129747

Thank you! I just picked two images at random - one from them and one from ours. The Russian does have some nice stuff though with some very interesting designs. A little busy and overdone in some areas for my taste but interesting and creative nonetheless. If anyone wants to see the rest of the Russian's stuff it's here; http://www.arthit.ru/cue-cases/cue-cases-37.html Again THANKS - blush - P.S. My beef is not with the case maker but rather the importer who is using the "heavily tooled" description.

One last thing. Don't ever pause when telling someone what you want for something. Have the prices you want clearly in your head and don't ever pause when delivering it. When I was young I made a serious mistake more than once of judging people based on how they looked when they would ask about price. For some stupid reason I would hesitate when I felt someone looked as if they couldn't afford the case they were asking about. Conversely if the person looked "wealthy" then I would state the price timidly and fawn over them. It didn't take long for me to find out that "you can't judge a book by it's cover" is sooooo true. Having the price ready and being able to deliver it in the same way to anyone who asks shows competence and confidence.

Don't think that this has not crossed my mind more than once. The problem with this approach is that it's a race to the bottom as the competition can always take more shortcuts and still achieve the "look" that's good enough to fool people in the short term.I will tell you a quick story.Once upon a time back before we did mass production in the early 90's I was visited in my German office by a Taiwanese importer whom I had met at a trade show. She came to visit me while in town visiting her large customers. She came fishing for information and one of the questions she asked was what our best seller was. At the time I was into all kinds of pastels and was making cases using a brilliant blue vinyl and hot pink among other colors. So I picked out a blue and pink one and showed it to her and said this is our best seller bar none.Three months later I was at the annual industry trade show in Las Vegas and as I walked up to her booth there was a line of blue and pink cases proudly on display. She was obviously embarrassed but I played it off as if it meant nothing and asked her how they were selling. She said that no one was taking an interest in them and I said, "oh, I thought you were asking what the best selling colors were for Germany, the Americans hate this color combination." :-) Sometimes you win one. What I have learned in business these past 20 years is that relationships sell products. Honestly it's not about who has the cheapest price in most transactions. If it were then there wouldn't be any brand names. It's the relationship you form with your customer that ultimately wins the day. Obviously you aren't going to have a license to steal just because you have a good relationship though, you aren't going to be selling a million widgets at $3 while all of your competition is at $1.50. But I will bet that you can sell them at $1.75 if your customers have faith in you and your quality and service.Once you establish a good trusting rapport and back it up with quality items then you are well on the way to outdistancing the competition. At shows I used to educate my consumers about my quality with demos. I would actually take their $5000 cue and put it in my case and turn the case upside down with the lid open and shake it vigorously. Among other things. Then I would point out the other vendors who were selling copies of my cases and invite the customer to study them on their own. And the last thing I would say to the customer is that if they ended up choosing one of the copies over mine because of the attractive price then I wasn't worried about it because sooner or later, probably sooner, they would be back for the real thing. I went to shows for 10 years and many of you can surely attest that you end up seeing the same people over and over again year after year. Time and again I was proven right when a customer came back the following year reporting problems with the copy case they bought and stated that they were dead set on buying on of mine that year. I wish it were as easy as just sitting your goods out and watching them sell like hot buttered corn. I had that feeling one time and one time only. The first year I brought out what has become the most copied design in cases we sold out several hundred cases in a matter of days. I sold all my cases, bought cues to take back to Germany and had to buy other people's cases to hold the cues. :-) That was a sweet show. Ever since then I have looked across the aisle and wince every time I see a row of cases with my design that I have received no compensation for.Thus I am not a big fan of copying other people's designs. In some situations though I will do that which you suggested but I strive to make my version better than it's predecessors or I don't want to touch the project. If I can't do something to improve it then I leave it alone. Thank you Troy. This is the sort of information I am looking for. I think it carries more weight when it comes from people who do the work rather than someone like myself who designs but does not tool.

That's cool, it used to be $100. I used to buy a lot from them when I was in the states. You can hit $30 easily only a few pages in. I don't remember exactly but I think you can also download their whole catalog. I am sure I have it downloaded somewhere. Then it's a little easier to get through.

I just want to make it clear that I hate Peter Main and you as well Rawhide. The reason is twofold, first I can't stop looking at Peter's work when you post it as it's flawless and so well designed that it's mesmerizing, and second because I realize at 41 that even with the fact that in my lifetime we will see new body parts that can be bought at the grocery store thus prolonging my life I shall probably still not live long enough to be able to design as well or execute as well as Peter does. :-) P.S. If the Masterpiece section ever happens I nominate everything of Peter's that has ever been shown on this site.

I agree. However I do think that the accepted implication of "tooled" by itself is "hand tooled". I think you find that most people use them interchangeably. I have nothing against the use of embossers, lasers, etc.... I just think that if one is going to highlight certain aspects to enhance the description then one should be truthful about the method and not use a term that may be technically correct but is not commonly used in that manner and is intended to be taken in the more advantageous way. For example, some of my competitors to this day will sell their vinyl cases with a little die cut leather symbol on it that says "real leather" or just "leather". And that and the handles will be the only pieces of real leather on the case. That infuriates me to no end. Obviously most people fudge a little bit. When you say something is hand made you don't really count the power tools that you might have used to make it, be they a drill press, a dremel, a burnishing wheel and so on.... A famous cue maker once said in a debate over the use of CNC for doing inlays that when someone says that their cues are hand made then he expects them to use nothing but a knife to make it. Thus guy designed cues that were mind and wallet blowing. Thomas Wayne. This is however why I asked what the accepted vernacular is. If everyone said tooling is tooling no matter how it's done then my objection to my competitor's description would have evaporated. And honestly I still would love to get your combined thoughts on how these things should be described for my educational page. I'd love to cite LeatherWorker.net as the souce of the information. I don't mind sending prospective customers here to learn about leather working and what it entails. A better educated consumer is one that knows what quality is and expects to pay for it.

Well you all can probably answer that better I suppose since you can look at one of my cases and see the work that went into it. The best answer I can give you I guess is to tell you what my colleagues making similar products get for their work, A basic case from Jack Justis that compares to a similar model I make is priced at about $550 and my version of it is $350. A case I charge $1200 for that is nearly all tooled and carved is comparable to ones Jack gets around $1700 for with less tooling, but the tooling is done by Ron Ross. I am not sure but I think that the case that Rusty Melton just showed off here sold for $600 on the billiard forum. If I had done that case I would have charged at least $800 for it. I mean there is no getting around the fact that the cost of living and thus the wages are lower here. That allows me some leeway. But still a case that I sell for $400 costs me just over $200 to build, even in China. Jack's most basic case goes for around $450 if I remember correctly and he is retired from Chris Craft and building cases out of his laundry room workshop. I'd be surprised if his cost per case is much more than mine for similarly built cases. If I did the cases in the USA and paid American tooler's prices for them then they may or may not be more expensive depending on what my circumstances were and how much I wanted and needed to make. As an example I once collaborated with Chas Clements where I sent him the cut leather and he tooled it and sent it back and we made a case. My cost to make the case was $200. Chas charged $400 for his work. I sold the case for $800. Up until that point my most expensive tooled leather case was $490. If I had used my normal "business" calculation then the case would have been over $1000 and if I had added in some more for Chas' name and reputation then it would have cost even more. But my main concern on that case was to get Chas' work out to more people at a more affordable price, not really to cash in on the name and take what the market would bear. If I asked any of you all to do something for me and you charged me $500 or a $1000 then I most likely would put that right into the case with no markup and just be happy with the profit I would get if the case had no tooling. So a case that now costs $500 from me would then be $1500 with your tooling. As it is right now I deal with several toolers here in China and when I first talk to them I ask them what they will charge me for x-amount of tooling, using Sheridan style as a benchmark. Unless they are way over my budget I give them what they are asking for the first time with the understanding that the price is negotiable given several factors, one being giving them more work. If their work is exceptional then I often offer to pay more or just send more money when I pay. Bobocat is going to do some work for me. Him I have told that I will send him the leather and he is to do whatever he wants to do and send me a bill. I might choke on the bill or I might not but there is no pre-arranged price. I will just see where it goes and when the case with his art is done it will be priced according to our costs and what I feel it's worth. I guess this is a long answer to your question but it goes back to the roots of this discussion. Pricing is something that is fluid and dependent on many factors. While it's cheaper to get leather tooled here on average I can also take you to shops in China where a tiny wooden sculpture carved out of a piece of burl will set you back more than $1000, and the same story is repeated with jade, pottery, laquer paintings, calligraphic art, hand embroidery, ivory carvings and so on. And let me tell you that some of the carved leather goods here sell for good money as well. If any of you read Chinese you can look on www.taobao.com and find some really neat and well done stuff priced pretty high. Anyway, I guess the answer is that if the cases were wholly made in the USA then they would surely be more expensive because they would cost more and I still would want to make the amount of profit on each one that I feel I am worth.

Have you tried? Does anyone here think that it makes sense to sell $1000 pool cue cases that are "made in China"? My shop is in China. I now have five people working for me making the cases I have always wanted to make. The very first case I put up for sale was $1200. Granted I started out with a little bit of a reputation from my previous business but that rep was for delivering mass production cases. Solid cases but still production models. When I though about getting back into case making after a four year break I thought about what I want and what I think my time and knowledge should be worth. My cases are not priced based on what they cost. They are priced based on what I feel they are worth. And that is based on what I feel I am worth. If no one wants to buy my work then that's fine, I will do something else as that shows that the buying public doesn't agree with my own idea of what my work is worth. That's called market reality. But you will never know unless you try. Are you as good or better than Paul Cox or the rock star wrist band people? Maybe but unless you give yourself the opportunity to get out there and prove it by charging what you need to do that then you will never know. Customers go for what they know, they don't check out Rock Star Wristbands and then go searching on the web for comparable stuff from other people and then take a shot on those people being "better", especially if what they find is "cheaper". It's a funny world and the price of things rarely reflects the true value, or lack of it. Two things that are missing from this discussion are perceived value and customer satisfaction. Perceived value is when a customer looks at your stuff and assigns a price to it in their head. When they think it's worth more than what you put on it you are ahead of the game. Customer satisfaction as relates to price is when the customer feels that they have received far more than they paid for. The thing is that you can't really base your prices on what others charge. Because you see that it's all over the board. You can only make sure that what you charge really works for you and your business. If you can get away with making cell phone cases and getting $500 each for them then more power to you and hopefully you are doing something positive with the money. It's a sure bet that the people paying you $500 for the cell phone cases are getting whatever measure of satisfaction they hoped for. It took me a year and a half of making cases and getting them out there and putting myself back in the spotlight to get to the point where my cases stand up as worth the money to most people who view them now. I guarantee you that if had let stereotype and stigma of "China" stop me then I'd just be a low paid designer making doing only low end mass production trinkets instead of following my dream of having the kind of shop that can make just about anything out of leather and do it with quality. But in all things you need to be true to yourself first and if you believe that your stuff is worth it then charge accordingly. You can always adjust. As Bree said, the world is your stage now. The audience is worldwide. The basement guitar hero can now become a real star and the kitchen table leather worker can gain a worldwide customer base at prices that make people stutter. It all starts with the belief in yourself that you are worth it and then the stuff to back it up.

I didn't say that. I said a "service" that handles all the back office stuff. I thought about this more than ten years ago. All businesses have common tasks, billing clients, paying bills, government paperwork, legal issues, keeping up with licenses and insurance and so on..... But those tasks combined aren't usually enough to warrant a full time employee and still they sap the time of the producers in the business. So a "Small Business Service" could handle those things centrally for many clients at once. Such a service could negotiate better insurance rates through access to many customers, the administration costs per client should be lower through refined processes, automation, experience, and so on. I would expect that the SBS would be providing their employees with decent wages and benefits.

One of the hardest lessons one has to learn in business is charging what you are worth and charging what the market will bear. Ingvar Kamprad, the founder of IKEA, said "profit is resources." He said this in response to the criticism that a large portion of IKEA's goods are made in places like China and Africa. He said that because IKEA makes a healthy profit they can afford to demand better working conditions for their production partner's workers, they can afford to do more to build a better world. Now I don't know that IKEA always uses it's profits so altruisticly but I do know that the lesson applies to all of us. Another way to say it would be this quote from Mark Twain, "of course clothes make the man, naked people have little to no influence on society." The lesson is that with profit you can afford to be generous. When you charge what you are worth and what you need to charge to stay in and grow your business then you can decide when to make a sweetheart deal or give someone a break. But when you are always undercharging because you are either unaware of what you should charge, or because you think the customers won't pay then you will be constantly under pressure because what you take in won't cover what you spend and you will spend a lot of your time scrounging for business. It's funny but the more you charge the more people respect your work. This isn't a license to steal obviously. Your work has to be good enough to stand up to scrutiny. But, as shown previously in this thread, it doesn't have to be the best in the world to charge the most for it. I try to build the best case I can every time. I don't charge as much as some who don't build as good a product as I do. However I do have a healthy profit built in so that I can continue to grow my business. On the other forum I belong to I am constantly lambasted as if my product costs pennies and I am charging dollars. I wish. The point that I make to them is that it doesn't matter if the product really did cost pennies and I charged dollars because what really matters is that customer who bought the case feels that it was worth everything that they paid for it and more. I don't care how much my competitors sell their cases for, whether the cases are higher in price or lower in price or how much profit they have. I care about two things, that they are truthful in how they sell their cases and that we deliver the best we know how to make. If those two things happen then I find that we are able to get and retain loyal customers who don't think about price. And those customers are overjoyed when I sometimes give them extras like tooling their name for free or an extra pocket or free shipping. I do this for repeat customers on an individual basis. It all starts with standing up for yourself and asking for the price you want and need. Don't be petulant about it, don't treat people who lowball you or get sticker shock with disdain. People are generally ignorant about these things. I once had a guy complain about the price and then he came to watch us work and when he left he said, "I can't believe you charge so little for as much as you do". People have by and large lost touch with what "value" is. They see a row of finished goods on the shelf and they have no connection to what went into making it. They see your little booth at the craft fair and think that a little booth at a country craft fair must equal low prices. This is partly due to the fact that we live in a world where we don't really have a connection with the person crafting our goods and partly due to a lack of education. When we aren't taught the real value of time and expertise then we tend to undervalue them and overvalue that which isn't expertise but instead comes in a pretty wrapper. 18 years ago I used to flat out go off on people who questioned my prices. I also used to sell out a lot to get business. I was at both ends of the spectrum. Somewhere along the line I realized that people just didn't know how to see the value in what I was offering them. They were either completely ignorant of what it took to make a cue case or they were completely bamboozled by the slicker marketing of my competitors. So I became a teacher and devised ways to pitch the product that educated them about the process and what kind of mental and physical effort goes into making the product. This seemed to work really well and led to a small army of "educated customers" out there selling for me and showing off their knowledge. I am not saying that this approach is for everyone but it sure did help me to think about it and have the right thing to say handy that didn't sound like a rant against my competitors nor sound like I was accusing the customer of being a fool if they dared to question my prices. I firmly believe that this allows me to be more confident about asking for and getting what I feel our work is worth.

Fair enough, I went ahead and did $25 to get your matching funds :-)

P.S. Windy, When I said I haven't always taken the high road in situations like these it wasn't meant to say that I have been deliberately misleading but instead to mean that I have often been confrontational and frank about the quality differences between my products and the competition's. This is something that I could have handled with much more class and grace and diplomacy and tact. Pool cues generally run from the hundreds of dollars to the hundreds of thousands. I approach cue case making from the standpoint that it should protect the cue as much as possible for the type of case it is. My colleagues don't always see it that way or they have a different idea of what amount of protection is needed. Most of them focus more on the look of the product rather than the function. I have been the opposite and have fought many battles in the "form follows function" war as pertains to cue cases. I'd like to think that those battles have resulted in generally better cue cases from all case makers as well as more informed consumers. But I know that my reach is only so much and my style surely turned a lot of people off with the delivery. That's what I meant by taking the low road. Five years ago I wouldn't have asked you all for advice. I'd already be attacking the other guy on the other forum and ripping him and his description to shreds. ;-)

I will definitely go back and look at it. I do need to review what I write on the website from time to time as things change. Sometimes I deliberately write "I made" instead of "we made" because the thing I am talking about is in fact something that I made, be it the design from concept through to actual piece, or even something that I did all by myself. Generally when I say "I made" then I am speaking of something that came to fruition through my direction that is unique and fresh. I just went back to see if I could find any thing that was misleading and I have to say that from the front page on I have been real clear abotu the fact that I do not work alone. However I do take 100% credit for the existence of JB Cases and how they are built. I don't find it to be misleading in the least if once in a while on the site I say something like "cases I build" because these are cases that "I" build in the sense that they would not exist but for me creating them in my mind first and bringing together the talent and tools to get them done. It really depends on context and in the context of the site I really don't think anyone who reads through it could come to the impression that I am working alone building cases. However, if you would point out whatever really jumps out at you as coming across as misleading then I will be happy to look at it and rewrite it so that it is clear. Your point is well noted and I will certainly be reviewing the site in depth to insure that I am not leading anyone into thinking that I am doing all this work by myself. That is the last thing I would want. Thank you for bringing this up. John

I know. I have been down this road many times as well. It's just that I think a lot of the time the dealer and the customers are ignorant of what it is they are selling and what it is they are looking to buy. When I had my production case business I had to contend with people selling copies of my best designs made in vinyl instead of leather and advertising it as "real leather" at half of my prices. It wasn't until almost two years later when I threatened to burn one of their cases at my booth at the annual industry show that the offending factory and distributor/importer finally backed down and stopped advertising their knockoffs as leather. But the damage was done. In this situation I don't really think that the seller was trying to be deceptive about it inasmuch as I don't think he really understands or appreciates the difference. Now that I have had a discussion with him about it however I think that he intends to keep the description and remains adamant that using the words "heavily tooled" is a proper description of the case. Doing a quick google search on "tooled leather" images brings up 95% images of hand tooled leather goods and the other 5% are machine stamped/embossed. Doing another google search on "embossed leather" brings up nearly 100% images of machine stamped leather and vinyl. So I don't think that there is any room for him to say that using "heavily tooled" is proper for die stamped embossing. Anyway, the customer is often in the dark about how things are made or done. This is especially true in pool cue cases and the billiard industry in general. I have fought this battle many times at shows and I usually take the path of explaining why I build cases the way I do and invite the prospective customers to make their own comparisons. That has worked quite well. Now, with my rebirth, so to speak, as a custom case maker, I find that I am talking about the decoration aspect of the case far more than the structural and protective aspects. And this then is where this topic comes from because I have been asked flat out why this case costs so much less with more "tooling" than mine. It's clear that the customer can't tell the difference simply by looking at the pictures, and even at that it's hard because the competitor's case is done in a completely different style that obfuscates the detail and craftsmanship in hand tooling vs. die stamping. So I don't really like to say that the competitor's case (at least in this instance) is not as well done or is worth less. Mainly because I have never had one to inspect so I really can't make that statement. But I can take issue with statements that are misleading, whether intentional or not and that is what I am going to do with an educational page on the web site that details what each type of decorating is and what type of work goes into it. Then I can just point to that page and be done with it. I think that treating my customer as a student is probably the best way to go. With my old company I found that this accomplished two things, 1. it made them more knoweldgeable about cue cases in general and 2. it made them evangelists for my products if they chose to buy them because they had to justify their choice to their friends. Thanks for the encouragement and for the advice, John

Ashamedly, I haven't always taken the high road in these matters but I am trying to turn over a new leaf. :-)

Hi everyone, I need some advice. One of my competitors is selling a case that they are advertising as "heavily tooled" when it is in fact machine embossed. Here is the case: I have received an email asking me to justify my prices from an interested customer because he says that this one has a lot of tooling and is cheaper than mine. My quandary is that I don't want to speak of this case or it's seller in a negative way and I have brought it to the seller's attention that I feel the insinuation is that the case is "hand tooled" since no one else describes die embossed leather as "heavily tooled". The seller has informed me that he and the maker consider this to be tooled, although on the maker's site they don't say that, they say embossed. So, to me, using the description "heavily tooled" is misleading even though it may be technically accurate. In comparison if I were to say something is "heavily tooled" (which I wouldn't) then I would use something like this as an example; My question to you all are these; 1. What are the proper descriptions of leather decorating methods, as in what are the commonly understood terms? 2. Should I perhaps put something on my website that defines these terms with examples? 3. How would you proceed with this comparison request? Thanks for any help, John

Love the panorama effect. No borders makes it work for me and really shows off the boundlessness of the scene. Seems like a tricky belt to wear though.

This is a plea from me for more members to donate to maintaining this forum. Even if it's just $5 a year it will help defray the real costs of hosting and software and machines and the intangible costs of time that go into this incredible resource. I belong to several technical forums other than this one. Like this one they are not pay-first type forums but instead are made up of members who donate their time and expertise to help anyone who stops by. I have no doubt that the "professional" forums which charge an upfront fee have valuable information in them as well but to be honest I have never failed to get a question answered or a problem solved through forums like this one. I don't know about most of you but I have certainly received enough tips and inspiration here that has saved me time and money that it was a no brainer for me to donate a little bit. After reading the thread about how Kate and Johanna and Clay (and others) selflessly spent so much time reposting 3400 lost posts I am begging those of you who haven't already done so to go to the main page and donate something, even if it's just $5. Sincerely, John Barton

Just another reason why this board and everyone on it truly rock!!! Forums like these are a library of immeasurable value and it's really honorable that you took the time to put all the material back!! Thank you. John Barton

Wow such wealth of experience. From the sheer talent you all display in your leather craft I would have pegged most of you for full time pros! I am almost ashamed to admit that I have been a cue case maker for most of the last 18 years. However before that I was a professional high diver and an Air Force weather observer, that's right I got paid to watch and note the weather. I consider myself to be a self-taught designer/engineer when it comes to making commercial goods. I seem to have a knack for figuring things out. My "day job" is product designer and quality control person for Sterling Gaming. They were my customer when I owned a famous cue case company (famous in the world of pool) and when I sold that company they hired me. I guess right now I am very lucky that I can combine both jobs as I design mass production cases for my employer and get to do custom cases for myself. Anyway, this was a great thread to read and see the diversity and commonality among us all.