Maybe I should give up woodturning....

[EightFingers]

Was in Target today and found a monkey pod vase (14” tall x 5” diameter) marked down from $29.99 to $8.99. 

I won’t even start up my lathe for that. 

[MidwestMan]

Yea.. you might as well quit... send me your tools

[crokett™]

I was wandering through a place here that sells food and kitchen/cooking related gadgets. Lots of international stuff. Anyway, they have a lot of turned items - rolling pins, pepper mills and I was looking at that stuff thinking I could make much better quality for the same price

[AHill]

Most of the really inexpensive stuff is knocked out by machine.  I saw a guy at a fair once selling pens and bowls he'd turned.  I picked up one of the bowls and you could see tool marks, and splatter from whatever finish he'd sprayed onto the bowls.  The bottoms of the bowls were unfinished, still with the mortises he'd used to hold the work.  Horribly cheap work, but he seemed to be selling them. I would say there were moderately inexpensive at maybe $30-40 for each bowl.  I wouldn't have given him $10 for a single bowl.

[crokett™]

I was at a craft fair several years ago - I still have a pen I bought at that fair. there was a guy selling furniture. It was all plywood with hardwood edges. Everything was nailed, no screws or glue. shelves were just nailed through the sides of a cabinet, not set in dados and no attempt was made to fill the nail holes before staining it. He was selling a fair bit of work.

[Arlin Eastman]

Was in Target today and found a monkey pod vase (14” tall x 5” diameter) marked down from $29.99 to $8.99. 

I won’t even start up my lathe for that. 

Buy it, redo it, and sell it for more.

[daddo]

Here, if it is made from rusty tin roofing, or barn wood (aka old fence wood) it sells, even if you tack it together with drywall screws to resemble furniture.

I thought the guy in Wimberly was selling a work shop table. I was corrected; "That table is part of a dinette set".  My bad!

[EightFingers]

Buy it, redo it, and sell it for more.

I thought about that since monkey pod grows here.

[BrokenOlMarine]

I don't usually sell my work.  I give it as gifts, donate to charities, etc.  Now and then I'll sell a few pieces to buy supplies or equipment for the shop just to help ease the budget. I can buy what I need, I can buy it quicker and clear out some space now  and then if I sell something.

Tina took four boxes to a large event.  The prices ranged from $75 - $200.  All were solid wood, no plys.  There were cherry, spaulted maple, black walnut, walnut, and mahogany, as well as burls.  Most of the work was done with hand tools, and the joints hand fitted.  Tina texted to ask how much she could go below the prices I had set.  The price for each box, is the price. 
  If they don't sell, bring them home, we'll try again later.

Before she left, the owner of a cabinet shop stopped to look and told her the prices were fair, the quality was excellent.  He said to hold out for the right buyers, not to drop prices.

[Arlin Eastman]

I thought about that since monkey pod grows here.

I knew it grows there and a lot of people sell it on Ebay.  I have never turned if before until I started making a Lazy Susan and I still need to finish it and will post it here when I do.