When I was doing trade shows inevitably some joker would hit me up for a cut rate on my work.
I'd reach under the table and pull out a $5.00 pair of Korean spurs.
"You want cheap ?, here you are."
Thanks NoDakDoc, Some adjustments will being taking place around engraving world today. To bad they don't priceout inlay work. I guess you could take the price of a letter and multiply by how many of that letter fit into a mountain lion or go POR and let your experience guest-a-mate. Someone should pull all the "pricing your work discussions and produce a pamphlet. Fred
There's a big difference between what freelance engravers can charge to engrave a Colt and what they can charge. That difference is that our work won't "letter" as factory engraving. To most gun collectors, the highest praise you can heap on a Colt is to say the engraving is "factory." You have to remember that gun collectors are not art collectors and many can't tell the difference between the good, the bad, and the ugly but with a factory letter saying the gun was engraved by Colt there is at least a provenance to the gun that tells the buyer that the work is acceptable to Colt standards.
I suppose it's a lot like the jewelry business. Mall stores like Zales and Helzberg contract with jewelers to do their sizing and some repair. A buddy of mine would get paid $3.00 to re-tip a prong and the store would charge the customer $20.00.
Colt's in-house engravers all have over 30 years experience each and really do splendid work so when you look at the price for master level work keep that in mind. Their master engravers are also well known and respected by serious Colt collectors. Freelance engravers should be glad that Colt's prices are higher than the average, relatively unknown engravers. They are setting a price that others can work under.