The Price of Artisan Pipes

[Puff Daddy]

Market value being what one or two of the highest bidders may actually pay for a few pieces, percieved value being what most pipe smokers might feel a pipe carvers stuff is worth. If you see a carver selling out quickly at pipe shows and when his stuff appears at auction or even as a showcase on a place like smokingpipes.com, then the two above notions meet and actual value is easier to surmise. If the carver carves, say, 20 or 30 pieces a year and sells only a few here and there at the same shows and on line venues, then you can see how market value and percieved value both come into play, and work opposing each other.

I've been to shows where I've had a carver offer to slash a big chunk off his asking price come sunday. Why didn't they sell out on friday and saturday? Went home with most of what he brought. This kind of thing only fuels the fires. Not judging here, just worth mentioning. To be fair, if another carver sells everything thursday night in his hotel room before the show, he wasn't asking enough.

 

[Vito]

PD:

So, if I understand your definitions, you're saying that "market value" is the actual selling price, which may or may not reflect what "most" buyers are actually willing to pay (the perceived value). For example, when the seller sets the price so high that it's above what "most" buyers are willing to pay, but not so high that no one is willing to pay it, that's a high "market value" relative to the perceived value. But in your example of the guy who sells everything in his hotel room on Thursday night, and his show table is empty, that's a low "market value" relative to the perceived value.

That makes sense. The trick is for the pipemaker (or vendor) to match them up. The "sweet spot" is the highest price he can get without carrying any inventory. IOW, if every pipe he makes sells immediately, then his production output (supply) is exactly equal to the market's demand, and he's in the El Optimo Zone.

If he raises his prices and sales decrease, he'll have a supply surplus. In that case, he has to carry inventory. Until he sells the inventory he doesn't have revenue to offset the operating and capital costs it took to produce it.

If he lowers his prices, demand will exceed supply, and he'll have a production backlog of orders he can't produce enough product to fill.

Neither case is optimum. The "right" price is the one that has him working at his ideal capacity (which is his choice to make), with neither a surplus of inventory nor a backlog of orders.

That's a tough call for someone who's new to the market. I expect that it's less problematical for the well-established pipemakers, who have not only their years of experience but also their brand name to rely on in optimizing the match between market value and perceived value.

:joker:

 

[Puff Daddy]

Vito -> Yup. I think, for the new pipe makers (some, not necessarily all), there are dues to be paid to earn your rep. The problem is, sometimes (too often) folks have so much invested in start up, they can't see not charging top dollar right out of the gate. Unfortunately, irregardless of cost output, the stuff isn't often up to snuff to justify the asking prices regardless of the cost put into the making. For quite some time a lot of folks said Rad Davis was under pricing his pipes, as the construction, fit and finish, and overall design met or surpassed many of his peers who were charging considerably more. Rad earned his bones, and when his prices crept up, they were justified and nobody bitched. Rad earned the respect of the community by doing what he did and his rep is stellar. There are certainly others (Todd Johnson, Adam Davidson) who have so much talent and put out such high quality that their stuff immediately demanded high prices. Statistical outliers, IMHO. For most new carvers, I think the trick is to match output, quality and price with their time spent carving and their reputation in the arena. Ya gotta earn your bones. If you can move 20 pipes a year at around $200 -$250 and those pipes are well recieved, and that also matches your comfortable annual output, then you should be happy with that and just work on improving the little things that will make your pipes better. In a few years if you've moved that"Product Movement Price" into the $350-$450 range or better through reputation, then you've arrived.

 

[KevinM]

Yes, it's better to think of ranges, I'd say, rather than a to-the-penny #, which might have a lot of randomness in it.

Really, when I look at the asked prices for pipes -- whether artisan, production line or refurbs -- the asked prices mostly seem quite reasonable to me, except for certain well-known examps that are expensive largely because everyone expects them to cost a lot.

It's kind of like fly tying, another home workshop hobby/sideline. There's a lot of skill involved, but at, say, $20 per dozen flies, there aren't many guys who could hope to make it pay, and it's not for lack of trying.

Some avocations just don't translate into vocations real well.

My Bright Idea for the Night -- Let one of the carving BoB's go on Shark Tank and ask the sharks for $100K for 30 percent of a startup pipe carving bidness.

 

[Harlock999]

Strangely, I rarely think about how much money others are making, or whether someone is, or is not, making a decent living doing what they've chosen to do.
I do occasionally contemplate why I'm not making more money, so as to better afford my... hobbies!
However, as a collector, I am interested in what other collectors are paying for things, because that indirectly affects my own acquisition strategies.

 

[Puff Daddy]

That's a really good point Harlock, and it's worth saying that I think we'd all certainly hope pipe carvers would make a decent living doing it when they get skilled and do it well. I think we're talking about prices and values the market carries and certainly not any animosity against a carver making some coin. In the past I've thought about what Lars Ivarsson or the Bang boys might pull down in a year, especially if they sat down and really cranked em out (like the Bang boys seem to do). I never felt the slightest resentment towards what seems like a really tidy living if the top carvers push themselves. From what I've read though, most seem to be older and just don't make a lot of pipes every year. One would think that, if a single pipe would command four figures, a carver would want to make several a week. From what I gather, guys like Ivarsson and Chonowitsch only make a handfull a year. Maybe they are only subsidising a retirement income, or maybe they are just too old to crank em out in numbers anymore, or maybe it just takes weeks to make a superb specimen and they'd rather just make a few of those a year instead of cranking out 10 not-too-shabby pipes a week to make the same kind of annual income.

Who knows.....

 

[Vito]

...I do occasionally contemplate why I'm not making more money, so as to better afford my... hobbies!

Do I detect the signs of GAD (Guitar Acquisition Disorder) in your post, Brothah Harlock? :twisted:

Not that I want to encourage hijacking of the thread, whose participants have so far nobly restrained themselves from such a detour. But I believe it was GLP who first mentioned the wacky world of instrument pricing, with additional observations by Brothah MisterE. If ever there were a textbook case of massive shifts in the differential between "market value" and "perceived value", the musical instrument market (especially so-called "vintage" instruments) is it.

For example, just try glomming onto an original Mosrite guitar from the 1960s heyday of that brand (some specimens of which are in horrifyingly unplayable condition), and you'll get a kilobuck$ sticker shock whuppin' that will make you think Danish pipe prices aren't so outrageous after all. With the pricey pipes, at least you get something you can use right away. I've seen "vintage" Strats and Telecasters that are pure dogs selling for >$10K, and need another $1K worth of work just to make them playable. :x

By contrast, I've found dirt-cheap estate pipes that need nothing more than some cleaning and maybe some stem work to make them exquisite smokers.

The moral: A pipe jones is economicaler than a guitar jones. :mrgreen:

:joker:

 

[scotties22]

I gotta say that I have loved reading this thread. Very thought provoking. Pricing (the few pipes I have sold) has been quite the challenge and it's nice to hear what the "consumer" has to say.

Thanks boys

 

[Anonymous]

This :

Artisan pipes are, by definition, old style, slow, prone to fits and starts manufacturing. Ya gotta love it, because you're not in it for the money. (The Pipepedia section on the history of Italian pipemaking is instructive and always makes me chuckle.) The non-artisan, Henry Ford approach to pipemaking has a built-in price limitation, because it is based on a production line spitting out a commodity at the end.

strikes me as strange.

There are/were guys in Italy like Baldi & Cavicchi who literally carve their stummels by hand. Baldi probably made his own stems from scratch ; Cavicchi uses castings and has his wife do the finish sanding/staining/polishing. Why ? To speed up production (very apparent in the final results). Because time is money. Using it most efficiently means more money.

The "Italians" people think of (Castello, Caminetto & that type of operation) use frazing machines and have multiple workmen finishing the frazed stummels. Very Ford-like. Their appeal is NOT that they are/were "hand made." It's that they are executed to a high standard. Other, "solo" makers (the Sicilians in particular) will work up a supply of carved briar, then call their friends in to help finish them. Everybody ends up with a hand in everybody else's "hand made" work.

In ANY field of craftsmanship, what separates a journeyman (or even a competent apprentice) from a master is NOT the quality of his work. It's that the master can turn out high-quality work at a rapid enough clip to not only make a living, but hire journeymen to do his scut work, freeing him to concentrate on what he does best. The people working for him can't yet.

FWIW

:face:

 

[Briar Spirit]

this isn't a dig at you kirk, please don't take it as such...

you ain't no lady

rev

Aaaaww shucks, I loves ya too Rev.

 

[RD]

Glad to see the tone of this discussion has been so constructive. It's a controversial area.

I would define the "worth" of a pipemaker's work to be what the market will pay for them on average, and over time. At least I think that's the only definition of "worth" that is of practical use to the pipemaker or the buyer.

The last thing I would ever want to see is for a talented pipemaker to lose his business because of unsustainable high pricing, as much as I like to see talent rewarded. There's also something to be said for building loyalty by offering the customer outstanding value and giving them a better product than they feel they should expect for the money. I think generally that's the best way to build a successful business. Pricing should be a little lower than "worth" or market value.

As some of the recent posts have started to point out, the pipemaker can only make their business work if they are realistic about the prices they can command, on average and over time, and they adapt their processes to control the cost and time spent making each pipe so that they can still make a living or, hopefully, make good profits. Just like any business. If they can't do this then they can't remain pipemakers for long, even if they are capable of making outstanding pipes

Look at it this way - if you take twice as long as Pipemaker A to make a similar pipe then you're earning half as much (all other things being equal). If you double your prices to maintain the same income as Pipemaker A then you're basically asking your customers to pay a premium because you are inefficient. That's not a reason to charge more, and your customers won't pay it (they'll just buy the equally good pipes that Pipemaker A sells for half the price).

 

[sisyphus]

The "Italians" people think of (Castello, Caminetto & that type of operation) use frazing machines and have multiple workmen finishing the frazed stummels. Very Ford-like. Their appeal is NOT that they are/were "hand made." It's that they are executed to a high standard. Other, "solo" makers (the Sicilians in particular) will work up a supply of carved briar, then call their friends in to help finish them. Everybody ends up with a hand in everybody else's "hand made" work.

Actually you're wrong in the case of Castello. They make a pipe pretty much the way any "artisan" makes one, the difference being they have several guys doing it in a larger shop.
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[Anonymous]

Giancarlo Savinelli’s doctorate in political science has trained him to be a cogent arguer, always ready to document his thesis. “There aren’t three schools, only two: the industrial, and the artisan. The first is the factory tradition and the second is the Pesaro school of Ser Jacobo, Mastro, and the others."

Giancarlo explains that, with few exceptions, the northern makers have developed their images from industrial models. The Pesaro school is baroque, ornate, and owes it’s concept to Danish handmade pipes of the 1960s, and that style sometimes influences northern pipemakers a bit. But mostly it is the “series” pipe made in factories that conditions the northern school’s work. The school includes pipemakers Ascorti, Radice, Castello, and, around Gavirate, where Savinelli established his factory half a century ago, companies such Ardor, Talamona, and Molina. The pipes produced by these makers have a clean-line aesthetic, only baroque when they want to imitate.

"It's also in the character of the people," he says. "The northern mentality has a work ethic conditioned by factory culture and strong notions of community organization. Without that, industry is not possible. The south [in which he includes Pesaro] is more individualistic, anarchistic, and creative. It's a question of sensibility." Regional bias is strong in Italy.

Giancarlo defines Savinelli's company culture as classic factory production. Castello, he says, moved away from that by producing fewer models and finishes in more individualized and somewhat larger shapes. He believes that Castello and the other makers who grew out of Castello are midway between. "It starts with the machine and develops from there," he comments.

"There are only artisan hand-mades and factory-produced pipes. After all, many of the fancy shapes that look handmade can be produced on a machine with the right die... and most are!" He adds with a wicked grin, "Ask some of the artisan shops to show you the fraizing machines they keep hidden in a backroom. Do you think that anyone who publishes a shape chart can produce hundreds of the same pipe individually, by hand, with any consistency?"

Excerpted from an interview in Pipesmoke Magazine (Spring, 1999)

:face:

 

[sisyphus]

That's kind of the point, Castello has no consistency. Pick a shape from their chart, then get your hands on half a dozen examples of that shape. The shaping and the dimensions of the pipe vary, sometimes wildly.

I'm not sticking up for Castello because I have a stake in it. My tastes lean toward old English factory pipes. But the pipes they turn out start as block and rod, so making blanket statements about frazing or pre cut stummels in their case is untrue.

 

[Anonymous]

Giancarlo Savinelli doesn't know what he's talking about.

OK. 8)

:face:

 

[the rev]

This :

Artisan pipes are, by definition, old style, slow, prone to fits and starts manufacturing. Ya gotta love it, because you're not in it for the money. (The Pipepedia section on the history of Italian pipemaking is instructive and always makes me chuckle.) The non-artisan, Henry Ford approach to pipemaking has a built-in price limitation, because it is based on a production line spitting out a commodity at the end.

strikes me as strange.

There are/were guys in Italy like Baldi & Cavicchi who literally carve their stummels by hand. Baldi probably made his own stems from scratch ; Cavicchi uses castings and has his wife do the finish sanding/staining/polishing. Why ? To speed up production (very apparent in the final results). Because time is money. Using it most efficiently means more money.

The "Italians" people think of (Castello, Caminetto & that type of operation) use frazing machines and have multiple workmen finishing the frazed stummels. Very Ford-like. Their appeal is NOT that they are/were "hand made." It's that they are executed to a high standard. Other, "solo" makers (the Sicilians in particular) will work up a supply of carved briar, then call their friends in to help finish them. Everybody ends up with a hand in everybody else's "hand made" work.

In ANY field of craftsmanship, what separates a journeyman (or even a competent apprentice) from a master is NOT the quality of his work. It's that the master can turn out high-quality work at a rapid enough clip to not only make a living, but hire journeymen to do his scut work, freeing him to concentrate on what he does best. The people working for him can't yet.

FWIW

:face:

As a master craftsman I can tell you that there are things I do that I just do faster, and more efficiently than journeymen. But as an artist I can tell you that there are certain things that I can do that my understudies just cannot do. They may be learning, but they cannot do it. Pipe carving in the artisan craftsman mode is not perfectly engineered pipes. A friend said a perfectly engineered pipe should get you about 150 bucks tops. But then you get to the artsy part of things. And this is parts practice, parts inspiration, parts natural born creativity. When I look at the difference between a master craftsman and a journeyman is isn't just in speed, and I have worked in the trades my whole life. But when I look in the arena of pipe, and I see the addition of artistic expression this difference grows larger. An apprentice may become a master craftsman that is still learning to expedite his practice, and a journeyman can become a perfect machine of efficiency but still lack that subtle something that sets apart the artist.

My opinion of course,

rev

 

[Harlock999]

...I do occasionally contemplate why I'm not making more money, so as to better afford my... hobbies!

Do I detect the signs of GAD (Guitar Acquisition Disorder) in your post, Brothah Harlock? :twisted:

It' funny you should mention GAD!
I thought I was finished with it, like I really need another Les Paul.
But now I'm not so sure...
But if the effect that PAD has on one's wallet is akin to having a small but valuable tooth removed, then GAD would be more like losing a pound of flesh...

Oh, and speaking of Mosrites...
A friend of mine makes THE most accurate clones ever.
'63 bound, side jack, with Vibramute... Actually better playing, and slightly less..."quirky" than the real ones.
Uncanny!
I actually think this guy should make pipes, because his attention to detail is frightening.

 

[Rad Davis]

Do you think that anyone who publishes a shape chart can produce hundreds of the same pipe individually, by hand, with any consistency?

Actually, they can come pretty damn close.

Rad

 

[Anonymous]

Sure. If you're good enough to.

But few makers have your hand-eye-spatial sense co-ordination.

(I suspect that most of them skirt this in the guise of "creativity").

In a production shop, how many employees fit your description ?

And how much easier / more efficient is the fraze-&-finish strategy when you're managing maybe ten or fifteen workers ?

In business terms, it's a no-brainer.

:face:

 

[RD]

As a master craftsman I can tell you that there are things I do that I just do faster, and more efficiently than journeymen. But as an artist I can tell you that there are certain things that I can do that my understudies just cannot do. They may be learning, but they cannot do it. Pipe carving in the artisan craftsman mode is not perfectly engineered pipes. A friend said a perfectly engineered pipe should get you about 150 bucks tops. But then you get to the artsy part of things. And this is parts practice, parts inspiration, parts natural born creativity. When I look at the difference between a master craftsman and a journeyman is isn't just in speed, and I have worked in the trades my whole life. But when I look in the arena of pipe, and I see the addition of artistic expression this difference grows larger. An apprentice may become a master craftsman that is still learning to expedite his practice, and a journeyman can become a perfect machine of efficiency but still lack that subtle something that sets apart the artist.

My opinion of course,

rev

Rev, what are you a master craftsman at? Not arguing with you, just interested. Am curious too about what a master craftsman thinks about pipe making and the people we would think of as master pipemakers. What are the things you see in the work of master pipemakers that differentiates them, and what are the kinds of skill that you envy? Maybe that should be a different thread but I'm very interested in pipemakers and their trade, and I'm sure you must have some interesting perspectives.