2y ago

A lesson in inflation from a 2003 Grizzly catalog

I was cleaning out an old bookshelf and came across this 2003 Grizzly catalog. Coincidentally, I'd just received a 2023 mailer. I was shocked by the increases in price.

Some highlights:
Standard 14" band saw: $375 vs. $800
Standard 6" jointer: $400 vs. $900
4-piece Bessey K-body clamp set: $150 vs. $350

https://imgur.com/a/U9ZMiLT

I know nothing about how inflation works, so I'm not sure whether this tracks with the price of bread or whatever, but it was eye-opening.

38 comments

Now look at the price of wood, I literally can't afford to do woodworking any more.
A basic 8 by 4, quarter inch sheet of ply now costs over 20 quid! Jesus wept
- Not inflation it is greedflation, when companies make record profit and the CEO's are paid 1000 times their employees with 8 digit bonuses, stocks continue to grow and stay positive, that is not inflation it is greedflation.
  
  I'd be surprised if Grizzly's CEO were making that kind of multiplier vs. the average employee.
  I think some of it might be Grizzly gaining legitimacy as a power tool manufacturer. Their earlier reputation (deserved or not) would have been closer to that of Harbor Freight's today. Now they're known to be a solid brand and they can charge a little more.
  That doesn't account for the Besseys, which are off the fuckin' wall.
  
  Pretty sure printing trillions of dollars and pushing it into the economy had more to do with it
According to the bureau of labor statistics, $375 in 2003 is $635 in today's dollars: https://data.bls.gov/cgi-bin/cpicalc.pl?cost1=375&year1=200301&year2=202309
It's true that yearly inflation is a combination of a bunch of different categories of goods and services, and that some of those categories will be greater or less than the overall inflation rate.
There's also things like sales volume, potentially having negative margins to gain market share, etc to talk through. I wouldn't know where to begin looking for that information.
- Excellent information! Yeah, it seemed to me that the cost increase was more than just inflation. As I said elsewhere in the thread, my impression is that their reputation for quality tools has grown, so that must account for some of the extra price. The 2003 catalog is their 20th anniversary. Maybe that means they were too established to be selling under cost to gain market share?
  We'll see if we're doing the same thing with a Harbor Freight catalog in 20 years.
But used. There is a lot of band mills that people barely use sitting in garages. Fuck, but used just on principal. Give your money to someone who actually needs it rather then some corporations.
Pre-pandemic, Lie-Nielsen chisels were $55 and now they're about $95. Kicking myself for not buying more sizes back then! Still worth it though, I reach for them more than any of my other chisels
It was never cheaper here in Germany, if you want decent hobbyist machines: band saw 1000eur, circular hand saw 500 to 700 bucks (not Akku), everything less is trash, good tools begin at the double, I got a mate in Spain, buying machines there, Euro too, but a third the price. I would've paid almost 2000 EUR for a decent small portable circular table saw here, bigger ones start at 8k. No inflation, just imaginary prices because too many idiots are paying up. There's always another way, nevermind how hard the greedy ones try.
The cost of filling up my own five gallon jug with water has DOUBLED in the last eight years.
At those prices, shop-built bandsaws and clamps may come back into fashion (I can't recall ever seeing a recipe for a shop-built jointer, though).
- Mattias Wandel has homemade jointer plans, and a lot more.
  
  He was the one I was thinking of with the bandsaws. I'd forgotten he'd done a jointer.
- I can’t recall ever seeing a recipe for a shop-built jointer, though
  Maybe not a powered one...
I got seriously lucky. Doubled my income in late 2019 and went on a multi-year spending spree. Got so many things I've always wanted, and got them before inflation.
Now I look at the prices on some of those things and I just wouldn't buy them now.
- Lmao inflation is always happening. There is no "before inflation".
  
  I'm sure OP means "before the recent spike in inflation". And I'm surprised you are having a hard time assuming that.

38 comments