[TheForge] Marketing Pure Iron

[theforge@mailman.qth.net]

In a message dated 8/23/2002 10:02:59 AM Eastern Daylight Time, 
phlip@99main.com writes:


> what industries are eating up the PI in France? And, has there
> been successful marketing of the product beyond the borders? If so, to who?
> 

100% of the Pure Iron sold in Europe is to blacksmiths.  Smiths from most of 
western Europe use the product and the demonstrators from Europe at the ABANA 
2002 meet asked that they be supplied with Pure Iron for their demos (and 
were).  The real problem here is that although there are thousands of smiths 
here in the US, over 90% are hobbyists.  That coupled with the unexplained 
trend towards making silk purses from sows ears, i.e., there seems to be a 
need by many of us to pick up old automobile crank shafts for $5 and spend 60 
hours heating and beating it into a 1/2 inch diameter rod for use in making 
wall hooks that sell for 5 bucks.  I don't know where this came from, but 
talk about false economy!  Way back when, the cost of the iron was by far the 
most expensive part of any forged item.  Today, even using Pure Iron, it is a 
small fraction of the cost of the item, and labor is the cost of the item.  
The cost of steel and iron today is at a 30 year low, and that cant continue. 
 Steel should be selling for two or three times what it sells for today as 
most mills barely break even in good years, and what will happen is that they 
will continue to consolidate and then prices will begin to rise again as they 
did in the late 1970s and early 1980s.  I don't plan on spending the rest of 
my life trying to convince hobbyist smiths that they should use PI.  I admit, 
there is a certain feeling of satisfaction in making something nice from a 
piece of junk, it's just that you cant make a living doing it unless you are 
making welded (not forged) metal sculptures.  
As far as marketing, those involved in the Pure Iron effort have a total of 
over 200 years experience in the marketing and distribution of specialty 
metals and 115 years of blacksmithing experience, included is the founder and 
president of the largest specialty metals distributor in the world.  
Hindsight is great stuff, but we're not sure what we would have changed in 
our efforts, and at this point are done worrying about it.  The shame is that 
if Art & Metal closes in the US, chances of it restarting are less than 
remote as startup costs for inventory alone are well over 1/2Million dollars, 
without the cost of building/racks/saws/phones/people/etc.
Michael






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