Re-enactor types are the guys who won't spend $150 on a good sport coat, but will spend $500 for one made in the correct style of their time period...even if it's really not made all that well, when you look at the tailoring niceties...$100 for some really badly made shoes, but that are period correct, $1500 to $2000 on a fire arm they really won't want to use too often, because black powder requires such careful cleaning,$400 for a scrimshawed powder horn cause it looks just like the one someone made in Lancaster county in 1750....and so on and so on....and $30-70 a pair for simple wool socks, long as they are hand knit.
But for some reason or other, my period glasses ended up costing about the same as my current prescription...but the period ones only have my distance correction....and I still haven't found the right shoes...
I suppose I'll just have to adjust my way of thinking - people who cannot do precision hand fabrication yet who love the stuff will set their own values on products, irrespective of my opinion.
one thing, though - if I'm going to make these and by necessity sell 'em for what I consider highway-robbery prices, I really must find a supplier of the proper silk braid grip-laces. Shoe-laces simply will not do, not at those prices.
try saving enough to purchase a complete CSMC "kit"! that gives NEW meaning to HIGH!
free dixie,sw