You’re mixing up the Cost of Goods and Cost of Labor with the price for which a product can be sold.
That wasn’t my intent - at least not solely.
I’m simply indicating that the CoG/CoL are almost certainly higher than is being stated. One can’t just take the cost of raw wood and compare it to the cost of an Ugmonk Analog. There are some significant numbers missing in that calculus.
Once you have that complete number including a complete CoG/CoL, which is almost certainly higher than the cost of a piece of walnut wood, then you’re in a position to debate whether you think the markup is reasonable.
On the seller side, however, one can (and some would even say should) sell that product for whatever the market will reasonably bear. In this case there are a whole group of people who are willing to pay for a nice, well-made wood product, so I don’t begrudge Jeff his pricing - even if I’m not likely to buy one.
The CoG/CoL facet of the discussion reminds me of the frequent comparisons of (at least back in the Intel days) a MacBook to a budget laptop.
There are people who acted like a $1000 MacBook and a $300 PC laptop were roughly equivalent. But they just weren’t. Yes, a MacBook was more expensive. But the entire $700 extra wasn’t “pure profit” for Apple. When you compared comparable parts (to the extent that was possible), Apple still made a healthy profit - but it wasn’t anywhere close to the entire cost difference. RAM and drive upgrades beyond base spec, on the other hand, were just insane. But that’s a different discussion. 
Ugmonk can’t really win in a “what’s a fair price” debate since people hate that a market supports the price for small batch design objects and also that someone would spend any time or money creating them.
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Agree. There used to be a company that made custom weightlifting gear, custom bars, weight plates that weighed less than the standard 2.5 lb plates (down to 1/16th of a pound), etc. They even had a plate called the “nickel” that weighed 5 lbs - but it was a dead-on 5 lbs, not “5 lbs +/- 5-10%”. Stuff like that is apparently important to people who are super-hardcore about lifting.
Anyway, the 5 lb weight plate from them cost something like $50, at a time when Walmart was selling them for $2.50 each. The fancy plate was stainless steel, and precision machined by a contract machine shop that also made parts for high-performance sports cars. It was a very nice product.
And the owner’s reply to anybody who asked about the price was that that’s what they cost, and if you didn’t get why somebody would pay that, they probably weren’t for you.
That said, I think the “what’s a fair price” debate has been heavily shaped by the fact that we have zero idea what things should even cost anymore due to the proliferation of stuff that’s low quality, produced for abysmal labor rates overseas, etc. If you actually use quality materials and pay first-world wages to manufacture products to precise tolerances, it’s going to cost money.
But IMHO that doesn’t mean there’s not a “fair price” you can figure for that as well - you just need to be comparing it to other high-quality products, rather than the stuff that’s mass-produced for Walmart.
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For me, at least, the quality is part of the functionality. I’ve got a bunch of cheap, vertically ruled index cards, but the quality and feel of the Ugmonk cards make me more likely to actually use them (same sort of deal with the Studio Neat pens and the Cortex notebooks).
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This all makes sense to me.
I posted the cardboard Ugmonk … replacement? … mostly as a joke. It may fit the function of the original, but of course it looks totally different.
And most Mac and Apple product users (or buyers, at least) have some appreciation of the fact that form and good design have value…
That value, of course, is in the eye of the beholder.
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I live in a big New York City apartment building, which means that a roach will wander onto the premises from time to time and I’ll go after it with a purpose bordering on bloodlust. The plastic flyswatter I used to spare our magazines was less than worthless—I could feel the little beasts mocking me from whatever crevice they’d dashed to. As a kind of a joke my husband bought me an “artisinal” swatter crafted (no other word for it, sorry) in Brooklyn from leather and wood with brass fasteners. The thing is FANTASTIC. Nothing escapes its speedy and sure thwack.
I’m delighted that some guy with a man bun in Brooklyn decided the world needed an artisinal flyswatter and followed his vision wherever it would take him. 
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If you build a better fly-swatter…
More seriously, this is a great point. My luxury is your extravagance is the other guy’s waste of money…
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Until I grabbed the Rocketbook cards, I was using index cards from Baron Fig. Same principle. And the cards themselves aren’t crazy-expensive in the grand scheme of things if you like them.
I actually think the cardboard one looks pretty cool.
The thing that strikes me about the cardboard one though is what all it took to put together well. He’s measuring, sketching, precision cutting, gluing, etc. He’s apparently a DIY guy so he just happens to have the clamps, glue, rulers, cutters, work surface, knowledge, etc. And of course he’s missing the tiered interior design and the separator - but those would’ve been easy enough to add.
This is actually what stops me on a lot of “DIY” type projects. I discover that to DIY something I need $30-$50 worth of tools I don’t have. And that’s for the simple projects. Add to that the fact that my time has some value, and it gets expensive quick.
That’s great.
Funny story that reminds me of…a local-ish bar apparently had a problem with flies in the summertime. They handed out fly swatters to a bunch of the regulars that were custom-printed with the words “SWAT Team”. 
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@All a reminder this thread started as a mild joke to tease @MacSparky @ismh and @mikeschmitz about their love of a small piece of wood and index cards with prompts. Let’s not get too serious.
In the spirit of keeping it light I improved my system this morning:
Seen in it’s full glory nestled between a half populated streamdeck and the week’s goals:
Yes I know I lose points for the cable management. Open to elegant ideas.
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Y’know…that gets me thinking…a metal business card holder and a neodymium fridge magnet would hold that card really nicely.
I use index cards for to do lists/reminders. When I have a desk again, I am strongly tempted by the Ugmonk stand, or something similar I have made for me. I want things I use to be beautiful as well as functional.
Now, I use a leather “Pocket Briefcase” I bought from Levengers in the mid-1980s.
It has 3 sections for cards, one where the card is framed and visible, a middle pocket for unused cards, and a back pocket for used.
I used this as an R.A. and Bibliographer in grad school, for my own bibliographic notes, and for lists and reminders now. It’s held up very well to a lot of use.
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I still have and use mine, likewise purchased many years ago.
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Been there, done that. Literally. I had a stack of quarter pages on my desk for notes. Bonus: good for the environment!
Once upon a time I worked at a place where if you wanted a new pencil you needed to turn in the stub of the old one. A new pad, show the empty cardboard base. The supply cabinet was locked.
One learned to use what one could. That manager was not well liked. But her supply budget was the lowest in the company!
Nah, I’m a Field Notes man.
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Only sane one among the 3 of you.
That is brilliant! I just crafted one for myself, but made it really fancy by using a bright red binder clip.
Close. He’s (possibly for the first time) developed a dock for the Hipster PDA. It docks using an industry-standard, spring-loaded, symmeterical 6-prong connector.
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ah, the 1800’s … good times! 
I have tinkered with this in recent months … not to any conclusion but it is/was a simple methodology. Search was a bit underwhelming though …