EDITED Thank You Bonsai Mirai/Gucci

after some soul searching and e-scussions with some friends, i decided to remove my initial post.

my own decision.

just because i have freedom of speech doesnt mean i should always exercise it...

after a whole bunch of views, i know it is probably a bit late for a retraction and sorry if this renders the below replies nonsensical...

especially your lance !!!
a $625 wire caddy in a cocktail dress with a french accent ?
YOWZA !

I don't think he matters that much.

thats what i thought when i started seeing skateboards, surfboards, snowboards and punk rock move from the "core" shops to the boutique shops (yes there are punk rock boutiques... just ask vivienne westwood)...

but i hope you are right mike... he is masterful with his trees, but i would suggest buying pottery directly from the artists with no middle man (i looked at some of the potters own websites and i suggest others do the same to avoid what appears to be a very considerable markup)

and if someone has nothing better to spend their money on than a $625 (+ shipping !!!) wire caddy.......,
well then go right ahead...

At that price, that "caddy" best have a black cocktail dress on and speak with a French accent....

I wonder if you can haggle on the price, ya know, like on "Wheeler Dealers"?
If you can ask for, and sell, at a certain price point............. .....whaddya gonna do? Doesn't move me either way

I don't mind having to aim a bit "lower"....
Tough business model to maintain, though....but, I am an idiot!

Super nice stuff though, right?! On the big Powerball drawing, I had the first three #'s and almost needed a diaper!!!
Alas that was it, but if I won......I would be "check-book" bonsai like you couldn't imagine!!

I wouldn't sweat it.....

I get all of my pots through Hollow Creek Bonsai. No kidding. I don't get into names and chops on my pots. They hold up through my winters. I doubt he will drive up the price on those.
His prices are bonsai snob prices.
You know. People who have money need to put a Randy Smith collected,Ryan Neil styled Michael Hagedorn blessed tree in that pot. Bonsai snobs!

I get a bit bored now looking at page after page of twisted/layered/carved/lime sulphured conifers no matter how good they are. I certainly wouldn't pay thousands of dollars for a tree, hundreds of dollars for a pot or even $25 for a grey tee shirt with bonsai tools printed on it - but if that's what you want to spend your money on then that's up to you. For me the fun of bonsai is finding your own material and developing it. Its a bit like buying an old car or motorbike and restoring it - its quicker to buy one where someone else has already done all the work for you, but what's the fun in that? Having said that, I don't mind if someone offers me silly money for any of my trees - as the best bit for me is knowing that I have spent nothing or very little on obtaining them and have turned them into something that someone else without the time, inclination or skill to do so can enjoy - and if someone doesn't know how to maintain an old car/tree/bonsai then maybe it keeps other people gainfully employed doing it for them.

I think the boutique approach will be suitable for my next project however - which is to set up a doggie boutique website. You'll be able to buy a really nicely photographed dog from me, (collected from the wild, with its fur cropped, crimped, bleached and set in place using special hair gelling techniques of course), which of course will cost you a few thousand bucks, but then again I am an artist whose been trained by Snoop Doggy Dog and Cesar Milan, and do offer a service where you can pay me to show you how to feed and walk the dog and restyle it whenever you want me to.......and if it dies I'll have an even better one you can buy..............................................

lance - 3 #s probably a couple bucks in your pocket, eh ?

mike - i'm with you re: not caring about name or chops...
i do like unusual pots however, but i would just rather support the potter than the middle man.

MK - thank for the literal LOL !
funny thing is, my little sister got in on the ground floor of the "doggie day care" business many years ago and now these rich hipsters walk into her place, drop off the dog and chuck handfuls of money at her... for many of these people, the dog has replaced the child (but that is another subject)

Why back down from the truth Kevin? The items are priced high,so you aren't lying.
Have you been contacted and strong armed into a retraction by the out west bonsai boys?
Let it rip tater chip,I say!

i'm not backing down from the truth and no, i wasnt lying, but was it my place to mount a soap box ?
probably not...

M. Frary wrote:  Have you been contacted and strong armed into a retraction by the out west bonsai boys?

nah... and actually that would have had an opposite effect in that i would have redoubled my efforts and risen up with righteous anger against the strong arm bully-boys of the fascist banzai regime that attempts to control the free thinking man !!!

or something like that...

and if the rich want to pay 2-3 times what a pot costs by buying it thru bonsai gucci, rather than from the artists themselves, then that is their prerogative... that and a $625 wire caddy!!!    (sorry but i just can't get over that one)



(as an aside, i unreservedly support ryan selling the trees he styles for whatever amount he sees fit and someone is willing to pay because that is his art and he is damn good at what he does in the style he does it)

Just to add to the above - if you're running a business then you must provide what customers want - the market will determine your success. So if you can sell a wire caddy (or whatever) for $625 (or whatever) then good luck to you - they will either sell at this price or not. As they say, its a free country.........................

I'm going to have to get around to posting some pictures of my trees one day! Here's me in a tree that I met a while back - unfortunately I didn't have my shovel with me otherwise I would have collected it....................................nice uro.......

Congratulations Kevin, your cutting remarks have obviously had the desired effect!

I just checked out the web site in question and can report that the $625 wire caddy has now been reduced in price to a far more reasonable.....................$525.

I was very tempted, really I was but on reflection I decided to stick with "some nails on the back of my shed door".

Like the bespoke wire caddy this also helps keep my "workshop" (that's to say garden shed) clutter free but is much more in keeping with my bespoke, hand made turn table (the bottom of an old swivel chair beautifully mated to the top of an old cable drum).

Cheers

Richard

wow... must be a clearance sale !
might actually be worth the price if they would at least throw in free shipping...

but again... i'm neither the seller nor the buyer... just a kibbitzer

Joking aside, the wire caddy is probably not ridiculously priced at $525 (Google tells me that's about £360 in UK terms).

Given that it's unlikely to be a high production volume product and that someone had to design it, build it and try to sell it for a profit to MIRAI before they too put their mark up on it an all.

Some of the pots though have eye wateringly high price tags!

Still, what's anything really worth in financial terms? The only answer is "whatever someone else is prepared to pay"!

Sometimes just attaching an attention grabbing price tag to an item can make it seem exclusive and exclusivity can seem desirable and desirability is ultimately what drives frivolous consumption.

Mind you I'm still not paying $800 for a bonsai pot. I can't afford too. I'm saving up to buy another motorbike (to park in the shed alongside my other two and my collection of expensive bicycles). None of which were frivolous purchases of course, I absolutely needed all of them

Regards

Richard

i can dig it... thats how i feel about old skateboards, snowboards and model kits... theres a couple out there that i still "need".