Re: That's a Graflex, right (Force Awakens teaser trailer #2)?
I completely disagree. If you realize how complicated it is and how many resources are needed to produce such a high quality product with that many various high quality finished metal and plastic parts, it's amazing if you even manage to keep it under $200. Of course it very much depends on quantity as well, but the Graflex flashgun shows how beautiful and well made these industrial designs from the past are. It shows quality that nowadays products hardly ever have. Imagine that these Graflexes we seek are often more than 70 years old and still look amazing.
That's why I salute Roman for his generous task of providing us with a true replica!
Speaking as an industrial designer, I can tell you that that you're wrong. The tooling is expensive, yes, but this is not such a complicated object that it would cost the same as a a watch or other electronics. Once you have the tooling, things get cheaper as you produce more, you're right, which is why it makes little sense to do a limited run on something like a graflex replica.
I understand the limitations of a small business, but this is something that will be in demand for YEARS! Especially with new movies coming out and more and more people becoming interested, and not settling for crap. Even Hasbro is upping their game with some of the things they make. Sure, maybe Roman doesn't have the space to stock thousands of them, but a Chinese company would. Product runs on this site are expensive because they are handmade and short runs. Like custom furniture. Man hours cost money and that makes sense. People are worth what they charge here because their work is great. Or they have a programable CNC mill and we pay for it's time. The long and short of it is that there is the option to make these for cheap and sell them for cheap, but people don't have the space or don't have the funds to place bulk orders that could bring the cost that low on this site. But a large Chinese company would, and they could. Just think of some something like a yapping robot dog. How many parts does that have? You can buy one in Chinatown right now for about $3. It has injection molded plastic, wires, circuit boards, lights, speakers, motors, gears, fabric, stuffing. These flash guns are WAY less complex then that.
As for the quality, they can make the same, or better quality. Our plastics are better, our machines are better, manufacturing is cheaper. You just wait and see how much of our crap will be around in 70 years looking exactly the same.
Sabs
Use google and you'll find plenty info ... here's a picture of one in the hands of a navy photographer :
