This is an important realization to make. Making super high-grades is not for everyone, and that's perfect because buying them isn't for everyone either. No big deal.I gave up on a lot of this shit a long time ago because I find it far more annoying than satisfying, and stretching myself on every pipe and then realizing a month later that it needed X,Y, and Z to be actually really good started to wear on me so I backed off and started having more fun again. This put me in a place where most of the time I'm making fairly simple pipes, and just trying to continuously do a good or excellent job on the basics. I actually think that's hard enough!
Lots of smokers and seemingly lots of makers don't give a shit about certain small perfections, and only you can decide what your tolerance level is.
This leads naturally to an important issue: price. Details are expensive, and law of diminishing returns kicks in on them for lots of people. For some, the details matter a lot and they must pursue them, for many they are an annoyance and a waste of time. (This is true for both makers and buyers.) In my experience, the details also require a certain body of experience in order for one to develop a more thorough awareness of what the details even are. When helping newer makers, I call this phenomenon as "zooming in." When you first start out, you see the big-picture shape of the pipe. Your first pipe is relatively pipe-like in shape, and it's a huge success. As you develop, you are more aware of smaller details: this transition, that line on the bottom of the bowl, this angle. You've "zoomed in" on smaller pieces of the pipe with the goal of making a better total package. Now when you look back at your first pipe what do you see? A bunch of missed details you didn't see when you were making the pipe, right? You are now aware of more details, and you can "zoom in" and see them. (And you're probably appalled.)
Ok, so price.
Details are a huge part of price. Why? They take a long time and a lot of care.
So now let me connect some dots. When you are a relatively new maker, you are picking up new details with each pipe. You are growing. Each pipe is better than the last. However, you don't yet have a body of experience sufficient to see all the details that Rad or Jeff Gracik see. (Not even close.) The trouble is its natural not to realize this. You don't even know these details are there to be aware of. And so, this is where new makers that ask high prices offend certain people.
When you ask the same price Rad gets, and you don't have the level of detail awareness and mastery that Rad does, it communicates that you feel you deserve to be paid more for your work than Rad does. How? Rad's work is better than yours, but you want the same price. It stands to reason that if your work got better (and caught up to Rad's) you'd ask more money. See why the "old guard" gets all huffy about new makers' prices sometimes? New guys regularly come in and effectively declare themselves better than established makers, and the "old guard" both collects those established guys and is friends with them. You're insulting both their collection and their friends.
Brief aside: the details take all the time. I'd venture that a full-time high-grade pipe maker spends maybe 25% of his time on the things that new makers spend 75% of their time on: shaping the stummel and stem, and fitting a stem. The full-timer spends most of his time on small details. Factor this in and in my previous example you are asking WAY more than Rad is for your pipe.
Not everyone is offended though. Why? Myriad reasons, of course, but at least one I believe to be true is this: many collectors can't see the details either! There are plenty of buyers out there that cannot see the different between a $150 pipe, a $500 pipe, and a $2500 pipe. And so, when a pipe with a low level of detail is priced at $400, some still buy it and are delighted. Another person might see the same $400 pipe and tell the maker he's an arrogant punk asking that. Granted, it could be that the second fellow is just a jerk and think anything more than $70 for a pipe is arrogant, but I can promise you there are those that express such offense because they see that their $400 on Rad's table buys a LOT more attention to detail. They see it, and the new maker doesn't. And it's really easy for the collector that can see the detail to feel like you are insulting his collection and friends. Worse yet, they may feel that the newer makers are taking advantage of the ignorant and damaging the hobby.
I'm getting tired and I've rambled on long enough. There is more to say, but I will stop here. I wrote more than I intended.
As a parting thought, how you think about prices as a pipe maker and a business man is different than how a collector thinks about it. My comments above are intended to communicate why tension and conflict can arise over price, particularly from the collectors perspective. I am not suggesting that everyone use the above and only the above thinking to price pipes. I'm just attempting to explain to the newer makers the (often) baffling experience of a cold reception or rude remarks about his work and prices.
