$75 of the price goes to shipping. The price from me for a Justis-level case is $400 if I build it all by myself. If I divide the labor and let my staff do the work then the price drops to $300. I figure if it's not worth an extra $100 to have me build your case then no reason I should do it. The number is really arbitrary because what's my time worth anyway? $3 an hour? $30 an hour? I don't know, I just wanted a crispy Benjy for my trouble. ;-)
The reason I chose Jack is very simple. Jack has claimed several times that I cannot make a case and his number one dealer/investor has taken up that statement as a sort of "battle cry" and has repeated it numerous times over the past several months. I finally decided to answer this by accepting the challenge and making a case. And the case I chose to use as a foundation is a Justis because Jack not only made these statements but tacitly condoned the actions of his number one customer.
I give the reasons for this in video #4 in the series -
http://youtu.be/QUpzwZ2mhnU
So I totally agree that using a Justis case is a controversial choice but it's also a practical one. At least on this forum Jack Justis cases have a reputation and desirability and are considered by some to be the best in the business. So if I am going to copy anyone then why not copy the best in the business? Go straight to the top as they say.
Now the plain fact, to me, is that Jack's cases are NOT the best in the business but then I have a pretty deep insight into the business to know this from many perspectives. That might sound like some sort of sour grapes or whatnot but in fact it's simply a fact that is revealed to any leather worker who compares Jack's work with the work of many other cue case makers excluding our work for obviously biased reasons. Even if JB Cases did not exist Justis cases would still not be the best in the business.
What a Justis case actually IS though is a simple tube case. It is a case that is relatively easy to make and does the job of holding and transporting a cue reasonably well and for the most part stays together for a decently acceptable amount of time. With slight improvements it can me a much better case. So as such it's actually a very good choice to use it for the aspiring case makers as a base platform from which to launch their own case making ambitions. From this simple base they can make the improvements and modifcations as they want to and always have a decent enough product to present to their customers.
In all honesty, all BS aside, many newbie case makers make some horrible mistakes which their customers might overlook or forgive because they are new or the price is low enough to cause the customer to accept the mistake in construction. By simply outright copying Jack's work and building off his case they can avoid those mistakes and modify from a base that works.
So really I am killing two birds with one stone so to speak. I am showing the Jack Pack that I can build a case and teaching the consumers/case makers WHY I choose to build the way I do as opposed to the way Jack does it and HOW I would make simple improvements to Jack's choices in order to be able to put out a lower priced product.
Now I welcome anyone to dissect my work on camera. I am totally ok with it because if anything is found that I could be doing better then I am flexible enough to make the change for the better. If Jack or anyone would like to do a series of videos ripping our work apart then feel free and I will not only link to them but I will use them as the foundation to either defend ourselves against unfair attacks OR if the points have merit to show what we did to change our product accordingly. I don't know how I could do it any better than that given our scant resources.
Lastly, I am not the least bit apologetic for being this way. If this is what it takes to settle the issues once and for all then it's the way it will be. I fully intend to have a long career as a cue case maker and I will not allow anyone else to defame us or flat out lie about our product without rebuttal. I feel like I can write a million words and they are meaningless against the timelessness of video demonstration.
Thus I sincerely hope that when this video series is done the Jack Pack will leave me alone for good and if they don't then I will just go on making more videos.
Lastly Joe Van Buren made a comment in passing that I don't want to get lost, he said that Jack is currently improving his interior. I hope so. I don't know exactly what that means but I sincerely and truly hope that he improves his interior to the point that no one would ever want to purchase a replacement interior for his case made by me. I hope every case maker makes interiors that none of their customers never need to ever have any doubt about.
That's been my bottom line since day one as a cue case maker. I didn't invent it I inherited it from Joe Porper and his "Protect-A-Cue" line of cases. Come to find out that Joe inherited it from Bob Meucci and Bob from Fellini before him. The idea that protecting the cue is the first and most important reason for a cue case isn't mine, it's been part of the cue case industry for more than 40 years.
I only made it into an obsession.
Johnny, Jessie and Katrina. In addition you are supporting Katrina's mother Karen and her mother.
