PxChris wrote:
Do you have a rough idea of what these types of cases would go for?
Not really as yet -- I need to properly tally materials (board, paper, scrap paper, glue, foil, stencil vinyl, book cloth, printer ink, wastage, postage on materials from the various suppliers), amortisation of printer/cutter costs, and time. The materials are not insignificant as everything needs to be archival quality, but time is obviously the main cost. That said, I'm hoping to optimise some of that, and if doing multiple at the same time, there are plenty of efficiencies to make better use of the overall time (doing one at a time has a significant amount of active time, but also you spend a lot of "unbillable/unproductive" time waiting for things to dry). Plus, when you are doing them more regularly, less mistakes, wastage and re-work.
I would say they would not really be economic to produce for inexpensive books like this BCA (which is really why no one that I am aware of sells custom clams for these kinds of books). I started making them for myself, because it would have been too expensive to commission someone for anything other than generic quarter-bound with a foiled author and title. Slipcases are definitely a lot less costly to make, especially if just basic clothbound and unlined. Just far less parts to deal with. With repeatable stuff, a laser cutter for cutting the board parts would probably cut down construction time. That's what Paul L over on the FaceBook group does. Probably wouldn't save any time on the one-off stuff.
The company in Canada that produces the ones that you see on Abe for early Hobbits (I have one on my 1937 2nd that I purchased from Lance) charges $350 for one of those. I used to think those prices were crazy (and I still think they are a bit too high for what is a cookie-cutter repeatable design), but I have a better appreciation of how they got to that number now!
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