Anyone ever used a Numberall 40B metal stamper?

[Stoneface]

I've got a chance to buy one, along with a bunch of other collar supplies for a pretty good price... well, the price is good if the stamper is worth it. The stamper would be used to stamp collar name plates.

Here's the product's official page. http://numberall.com/presses/numbering- ... od_31.html

[rinker]

How much is it? I have been looking for one of these cheap.

[DonF]

Not sure what anybody calls cheap on these forums anymore. For $1500 new even at half that, $750, you can buy more tags than you'll ever need. If your talking about selling them, how many tags would you have to make just to break even? I don't think tags are all that expensive and if your selling them, you pass it on to the customer anyway. So either way, I wouldn't get one.

[slistoe]

For 1500 you have to do each character individually? You couldn't make money selling tags with that thing if you hired a monkey and paid him in popcorn.

[Stoneface]

It's going to cost me less than $1,000 and that's with the stamper and a bunch of collar-making equipment to make biothane (dayglo) collars. The collars would profit me about $10 each and if they were 1.5" with a name plate it would make them much more desirable and I would sell more than I would with just plain ol' 1" regular collars. I estimated the collar equipment at over $500, so the stamper is not going to cost me anywhere near $1,500. Less than 100 collars and I've cleared a profit. With the right equipment you can make one collar, totally finished, in 15 - 20 minutes. That means the investment's paid for itself in now more than 33 hours.

I wouldn't buy the machine by itself, but getting such a sweet deal on it makes it worthwhile. The nameplates would cost me about a half dollar instead of the $4.50 I pay plus the shipping and time I have to wait when I'm ordering one for a customer. Where the plates will be so vital is in quality of service. It's all about great service. If I can get a collar to someone ASAP and not have to wait for someone to ship the plate to me, then fix it to the plate, then send it to the customer, it will cut down on my customer's cost by a few bucks and the time it takes for the collar to reach him.

On top of that these things are tanks, made of iron. So, it's not like it has a life span of ten years then it's done. If I use it for 50 years it will probably have appreciated.

[slistoe]

$10 profit? Seems like most folks are selling them for about $6 with name plate attached. $1.50 charge for the nameplate at some places, free with the collar at others (included in the collar price it seems).
At $1.50 per name plate by the time you subtract the cost of the material and amortization on the equipment you don't have much left to pay wages for stamping the collar let alone any profit.
Maybe your math is different than mine.

[Stoneface]

Slistoe, what is the $1.50 for? I think we got our wires crossed somewhere.

Granted these collars are often on the cheap, but the ones I've used have been pieces of junk. I bought a pair of orange collars a couple of months ago that actually kept getting stuck in the buckle. Cheap material, I guess. Besides that, the typical collar on the market 1", these will be 1.5" and all the equipment I'm buying I can use on my leathers, too. Making these collars by hand is a PAIN and can take hours just for one collar, so it will be nice to have some equipment to help cut down on the manufacture time.

[slistoe]

The $1.50 is what you can buy a stamped brass nameplate for from any number of suppliers. Last time I ordered collars (maybe 10 years ago) I ordered a few extra nameplates to put on a couple of collars that I had from many years back. My dogs get buried in their collar - the one I put on them when they grew out of the puppy collar.

[Stoneface]

Okay, I got you now. But, once you figure in shipping it comes out to a little more. I said before, though, that where the real benefit is, is in the service. I don't have to wait for someone else to stamp and ship the name plate if I have the machine on the work bench. I just take a few minutes, stamp it myself and get it to the customer a few days quicker.

It this stuff wasn't at such a great price I wouldn't even consider it. I mean, it's always a gample. What's great about this deal is if it doesn't work out I can just sell everything for a profit. But I think this stuff will be a nice addition to the collection.