doug3030
8th July 2018, 05:02 PM
I went to this event today. I had not been to one of their sales in over 12 months. The sale was not how I remembered them and was quite frankly disappointing.
I am not writing this to run down the sale or the Association - just telling it like it is. I took some time to talk about this with some of the stallholders and club members. They too were disappointed with today.
First impressions. there were probably less than 20 people lined up when the door opened - not 100. There seemed to be fewer stalls/tables of goods for sale and each table had less on it. What was there lacked excellence. There were still some old Stanley, Record, Carter etc planes but the range was limited and prices seemed much higher than 12 months ago. Good quality Stanleys like I have bought in the past for maybe $100 were now priced not much short of a new Lie-Neilsen plane of a comparable model. There were Stanley planes for sale still in the packaging they sell them for in Bunnings today. I even saw tools for sale on some tables that are also available in ALDI. Wooden molding planes that used to be $5 to 10 were now $20 to 50 and in short supply and often incomplete or the iron did not match the sole or similar. In short, I had a wallet-full of money and could not find anything worthy of spending it on.
After about two hours there, I found myself in a conversation with two stallholders, one of whom had only just covered the cost of his table for the day and the other had not done much better. During our short conversation I learned that it is getting harder and harder to find sources of the good quality older tools and it is getting more and more expensive for them to find even the newer, poorer quality tools. In short the price increase has not been driven by the stallholders but by the sources of supply and the stallholders are concerned for the future of the sales as the buyers will not pay the price of presenting the tools for sale.
On the other hand to summarize the conversations I had with other potential buyers, or overheard from them, as a group they had not seen such a load of poor quality overpriced tools before.
HTPAA of course got their site fees and admission fees so they would have covered costs but I am guessing that they too would be concerned about the prospects for the future of the sales. It looks like it is the old story of supply and demand, rather than the fault of anyone involved. hopefully it will resolve itself as these sales have been a good source of tools for me and many other woodworkers over the years.
Did any other forum members have a similar experience today or have any other thoughts on this?
I am not writing this to run down the sale or the Association - just telling it like it is. I took some time to talk about this with some of the stallholders and club members. They too were disappointed with today.
First impressions. there were probably less than 20 people lined up when the door opened - not 100. There seemed to be fewer stalls/tables of goods for sale and each table had less on it. What was there lacked excellence. There were still some old Stanley, Record, Carter etc planes but the range was limited and prices seemed much higher than 12 months ago. Good quality Stanleys like I have bought in the past for maybe $100 were now priced not much short of a new Lie-Neilsen plane of a comparable model. There were Stanley planes for sale still in the packaging they sell them for in Bunnings today. I even saw tools for sale on some tables that are also available in ALDI. Wooden molding planes that used to be $5 to 10 were now $20 to 50 and in short supply and often incomplete or the iron did not match the sole or similar. In short, I had a wallet-full of money and could not find anything worthy of spending it on.
After about two hours there, I found myself in a conversation with two stallholders, one of whom had only just covered the cost of his table for the day and the other had not done much better. During our short conversation I learned that it is getting harder and harder to find sources of the good quality older tools and it is getting more and more expensive for them to find even the newer, poorer quality tools. In short the price increase has not been driven by the stallholders but by the sources of supply and the stallholders are concerned for the future of the sales as the buyers will not pay the price of presenting the tools for sale.
On the other hand to summarize the conversations I had with other potential buyers, or overheard from them, as a group they had not seen such a load of poor quality overpriced tools before.
HTPAA of course got their site fees and admission fees so they would have covered costs but I am guessing that they too would be concerned about the prospects for the future of the sales. It looks like it is the old story of supply and demand, rather than the fault of anyone involved. hopefully it will resolve itself as these sales have been a good source of tools for me and many other woodworkers over the years.
Did any other forum members have a similar experience today or have any other thoughts on this?