PROFITS FROM AMERICA'S PAST

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

We make forks in all sizes and charge from $4.00 for a

miniature to $25.00 for a finely polished and bent full-length replica (a popular item with the Bicentennial so much in the news). These articles are displayed in pairs, crossed above a model fireplace, and are usually bought in sets of two.

We soon gave up on Puritan cradles and wooden-hooped barrels, and substituted such items as apple butter paddles or "hoes", sections of 18th century style wooden water pipe, and a variety of stools. Just now we're experimenting with flails, both miniature and full-length. (These tools resemble broomsticks joined in pairs, and were used in threshing grain.)

It's difficult to predict just what will sell. In fact, some of your greatest successes may come by chance as did our stroke of luck with a black, bleary-eyed, 18-inch wooden whale. A picture of "Old Whiskey" taken for our local paper came out so clear that I had a batch of 3 X 5 envelope stuffers made up, and these brought us more than 50 orders within two weeks.

We've found that it's important to cater to the whims and interests of our customers. One of my first special orders came from a 4-H group, which commissioned a 26-inch all wood shovel gilded for presentation as a graduation award. And just last week, at a meeting of our Bicentennial Committee, I agreed to make up a scale model of a metal and wood plow for an English visitor. He had noticed a full-size ox yoke I'd delivered to the committee, and wanted an article to commemorate his great grandfather's settlement in (as he called it) "Newbraska". Sometimes, too, a customer will send us a piece u page 43) of stock from which to make up an order.

1'd originally determined to stay with wood only, but when orders came in for copies of grain scoops and apple slicers with metal trim and edges, I laid up a supply of copper and tin strips to apply to such tools. The horn of a 75-pound anvil serves me as a tinner's "stake" (the small anvil used by sheet metal workers).

The craftsman who hasn't yet buckled down to selling reproductions or anything else may feel skeptical of his ability to do so especially when plenty of cheap, machine made Americana is available. If you're really worried about that kind of competition, however, you'll find it much less prevalent in the South and Midwest. Actually, though, it isn't a serious consideration in any part of the country. Every area has its share of buyers with money and discriminating taste, who will pass up mass-produced, hurriedly machined items. Such persons expect to pay top prices for top quality, and especially appreciate a well finished article.

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print