Scale Mail Dice Bags

[JediSoth]

Allow me to pick your brain for a moment, if you will. My wife and I are thinking of selling a limited number of hand-made scale mail dice bags, as shown in the pictures I've attached. They would be a variety of colors and patterns, possibly made to order. This wouldn't be a mass market thing, but rather a fun little craft project. Any money we made probably wouldn't be much (we're not talking about mass production quantities here). The bags pictures are about 8-10 inches tall, and about 6 inches in diameter (20 - 25 cm x 15 cm for my friend who use the Metric system). They would be considered "large" bags (though not as big as the Bag of Holding produced by The Gamer's Bag back when they were still in business), capable of holding several hundred dice. The outer layer is hand-knit with polyester yarn (probably black) and are lined with a dark cotton cloth to give them strength and to help keep the bag from stretching out and distorting the pattern. The scales are aluminum. This particular size has a round bottom. We are also thinking of making smaller bags (about half the size) with no shield patterns, but possibly a repeating pattern that goes around the entire bag (stripes or whatnot).

If you were in the market for a dice bag and this type of product interested you, how much would you expect to pay for it?

Thanks for participating in this informal market research!

 

[Mark CMG]

Informal guess is $20 but can you divulge a materials cost estimate?

 

[JediSoth]

Informal guess is $20 but can you divulge a materials cost estimate?

I could ... but then I'd have to kill you.


I think we're right at $30 in materials for one bag. The second bag (the purple one with the red & gold shield) was started Thursday afternoon during the car ride to Gary Con (it was roughly a 6 hour drive, but she didn't crochet the whole time) and finished Friday night. My wife didn't game that day; she spent the majority of two four-hour game sessions crocheting. I estimate it was a total of 12-15 hours labor.

 

[Mark CMG]

I could ... but then I'd have to kill you.

Gonna have to crochet a pretty big bag to get rid of the corpse. :-O

I think we're right at $30 in materials for one bag. The second bag (the purple one with the red & gold shield) was started Thursday afternoon during the car ride to Gary Con (it was roughly a 6 hour drive, but she didn't crochet the whole time) and finished Friday night. My wife didn't game that day; she spent the majority of two four-hour game sessions crocheting. I estimate it was a total of 12-15 hours labor.

I had a feeling I was coming in very low on materials and knew that the time investment was huge (I have a couple of relatives who knit/crochet/stitch/etc. regularly, one who works in a yarn shop out east). They are very nice and would make great gifts. Maybe a kickstarter program is the way to go for a limited run, just to see how deep the market is regarding how much you'd really have to charge to make it worthwhile?

 

[PaulofCthulhu]

I have a friend who makes custom dice bags (or used to), leather, sheepskin, (chain) mail, but unfortunately had to give up as it wasn't possible to make and sell them economically.

If you're doing it for the general fun of crafting then as long as you cover your costs that could work.

If you're looking to find a (fair?) price to sell at, basics could be:

Cost of materials + (number of hours to make x min. wage/hour)

or

Cost of materials + (number of hours x national average wage/hour)

Those may come out to be surprisingly high numbers for what people might expect to pay.

Then again I've seen people make and sell ceramic vases for £1 million. So it's just identifying your market.

 

[JediSoth]

Did I say the scales were aluminum? Ha ha. Silly me. What I meant to say was the scales are authentic dragon scale. I harvested them from the dragons I had to slay with this steak knife when I was sucked through a dimensional rift a few weeks ago. I ate the carcasses to survive, but I had all these inedible scales leftover. So I thought to myself, "If I ever find a way back to 21st-Century Earth, I'll use them on dicebags!"

 

[dogoftheunderworld]

Very nice (and different) idea. Given that I've paid $40-60 for leather book covers and custom dice bags before, it's a safe bet I would pay that much for this. (Now, I would guess that's higher than the average gamer would pay, but it certainly seems reasonable for a limited edition hand crafted dice bag.)

(And I would gladly drive to Southport to pick one up )

Good Luck!

 

[enigma5915]

I think your bags look amazing! I would say that $60 is very fair for such work. In fact, im interested in aquiring one of your bags. Please let me know how to do that.

 

[JediSoth]

There will be at least one in the Silent Auction held during the ENnie Awards ceremony at Gen Con.

Once my wife finishes knitting "stuff" (honestly, I'm not sure what all it is) for my nephew's impending baby, I'll probably think seriously about making a few "to order" to sell.

 

[frankthedm]

Those may come out to be surprisingly high numbers for what people might expect to pay.

Crafters who want to get an acceptable pay for their efforts have to market their wares on quality & uniqueness rather than targeting folks looking for cost effective wares. Mass production for the mass market took over most products because it is so cost effective.

The price for these should NOT be set at what a typical gamer would pay, but rather at the price a gamer who shells out over a $100 for a commission painted miniature would pay.