RETROSPECTIVE There are times in the experience of every craftsman when he stops to take an inventory of his labors. At such times he is sometimes prone to wonder if, after all, his effort to do good honest work is worth while.
The writer has spent many hours of his spare time making pieces of furniture for his own home. Time and cost were of no moment. Thoroughness and honesty were all in all. Noth ing was made that did not warrant painstaking effort, the designs being carefully considered beforehand so that disappointment would not follow.
Like many another craftsman, he would often stop a few moments after some exceedingly strenuous operation, such as the ripping of a 2-inch piece of good, tough oak. During such intervals, his mind has often turned to the thought of whether what he was doing really paid.
Curiosity getting the better of his judgment, he took the trouble to keep tab on a piano bench he was making. This particular bench was espe cially well designed, both as to thoroughness of construction and ability to please the eye. The top stretchers were gained and grooved to give great rigidity, and the lower one tenoned and keyed in the most conscientious manner.
Working conscientiously—and the writer knows well what that means, for he has worked for others, with others, and has had others work for him—he found it required twenty hours' time for the woodwork and the putting-on of a finish of stain filler and two coats of wax. Fig uring this time at seventy-five cents—there was some machine work—the bench cost for labor fifteen dollars; material, two dollars and sixteen cents. Upon pricing benches at the stores, it was found that a bench could be procured for seven dollars.
At first thought this home work seemed an unwarranted extravagance. If a satisfactory bench could be bought for seven dollars, why invest seventeen dollars and sixteen cents in one of one's own making? A further inquiry revealed benches of similar appearance, in both size and construction as well as in material, at prices ranging from fifteen to twenty dollars. This difference in price for
similar design and material caused a closer examination and comparison.
It is a common saying that in the large stores of the city one can find low prices in the base ments, and high prices for the very same thing on the upper floors. This may or may not be true, but here we found different prices for ap parently the same thing on the same floor. The reason for this difference was made evident upon a close inspection.
For illustration, on one bench the grain of the wood on the keyed tenons revealed the fact that the tenons were no part of the stretcher of which they were supposed to be an extension. They had been made separately and had been tacked to the outside of the leg with small brads. So bunglingly had the imitation been made that the grain in it ran perpendicular to that of the piece of which it was supposed to be a part; also, in places, the gluing was faulty.
Other wonderful things had been done. Posts on Morris chairs, that pretended to ex tend through the arms, showed above the arms with the grain at right angles to the length of the post. In some of these imitations, the work had been done so hastily that the imitations were not even "stuck" on in their proper positions. Tenons were placed too low for the stretcher, etc.
The higher-priced pieces were not so—this, then, was the reason for the difference in price. Here was well illustrated the difference between the spirit of modern commercialism and that of the old-time craftsman.
To the initiated, such comparisons are not to the disadvantage of the hand-made pieces. Few people really like imitations. They buy them only because they cannot afford to pur chase the real article. It ought to be said, too, that no manufacturer makes "snide" furniture because he likes to. He would much rather make honest pieces; but he has listened to the call of the dollar, and so we have it.