The old guys were smarter than most give them credit!

[Jim Koepke]

If his skill level and demand were such that he didn't need to work much to make the $$$ he needed more power to him.

He was always a little short of cash on hand. His skill level was high. Even in the San Francisco area there are not that many Rolls Royces needing restorations. Though occasionally I did get to see a couple nice ones.

Very true but certain areas have enough high income individuals ($500,000+/yr.) that one needn't be reliant on one or two people. You just need to be spoken highly of in the right quarters.

If one were to be starting a new endeavor, it doesn't seem one would be on a brilliant course targeting just this crowd. You indicate the top 1%, Patrick used 0.1% in his post. It may have been a typo, but it is an even more rarified field to attract.

jtk

[Brian Holcombe]

I think many have the impression that the only people patronizing studio furniture makers are "1%-ers" (a moniker which I can't stand quite frankly), yet when you speak to the people who have run these shops for years you find that much of the time their studios are kept up by regular folks who are just very interested in having that certain piece of furniture.

[steven c newman]

Hmm, and just how did the oldtimers get so smart, in the first place?

Somehow, one would become known as a "Master" of whatever "Craft" he was doing. Then, young boys were sent to study that Master's ways. Soon, this was made into an apprentiseship. Soo, after working for his room and board, buying a set of tools over the years, this fully trained Teenager, would go out into the world, Journeying around to find work as a......Journeyman. Might have been a Joiner, maybe a Mason, and even a painter. He served his time, until he was ready to make his "Masterpiece" for the respective Guild to approve of. IF it passed, he then could call himself a Master. He could even set up a shop to work from, take on apprentises IF he so desired. Back in the days of the Guild Houses, the ONLY allowed way to learn a trade, was to start as an apprentise to a master. DYIers were highly frowned upon. One learned their craft, applied their craft, and then taught what they had learned to the next group coming of age......But, that was such a long time ago..

back then, even George Wilson, esq. was expected to have and keep as many apprentises as he could afford to keep clothed and fed. Wages? Maybe......

[Patrick Chase]

If one were to be starting a new endeavor, it doesn't seem one would be on a brilliant course targeting just this crowd. You indicate the top 1%, Patrick used 0.1% in his post. It may have been a typo, but it is an even more rarified field to attract.

jtk

OK, Way OT, but offhand:

• Yacht builders - 100+ meter yachts used to be very rarified territory (think "Onassis"), now they're status symbols for every tech impressario
• "Business" jet makers - ditto
• Popular high-end car manufacturers, dealers, etc. Your friend's problem was that he chose Rolls and not, say, Lamborghini, MacLaren, or Ferrari. Rolls is very 20th century :-).
• Luxury clothing/accessory brands
• Any of a multitude of companies that provide various services that would only appeal to or even be viable for the extemely wealthy
• Etc.

The Bay Area is full of this sort of craziness. Just the other day some fine individual with far more wealth than sense blocked the alley of my condo complex in *Dublin* with the Ferrari 458 (list price $260K or so, though they sold above that) that they were using to shuttle their kid to a playdate.

Of course I may be biased because I work in a place that's known for having produced several billionaires and a ton of mere multi-millionaires. Many of them are still around.

[Jim Koepke]

If you were to start a business today, do you think it would be more successful targeting this elite group as opposed to targeting the average guy walking down the street?

How much would it cost to set up shop to build yachts?

I still feel the axiom, "if you make a product mostly for the higher classes you will live among the masses. If you make a product for the masses, you will live among the higher classes."

How many of the people that work in a high end auto dealership live in the wealthy communities? How many of the dealership owners? How many of them are actually owned by a company that sells automobiles in various price ranges?

Same question for those who work on making or servicing yachts. Do they also service lower cost sail boats?

Most of the people I can think of that have the big dollar homes in 'private' communities have usually done so by making a product that appeals to the masses.

Look at the Walton family. How many of the 1% do you think shop in their stores?

Then there are people like Bill Gates and all the other software, hardware and online geniuses. Ebay was made for the average person to buy and sell. Sure, the top 1% likely use Google, but it isn't set up just for them.

If you look at the list of the world's top 10 billionaires you won't find many that got there by only selling to the rich:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wo...s_Billionaires

Berkshire Hathaway is a pricy stock, but it is mainly a holding company with interests in stocks like Coca Cola, See's Candy and many other companies focused on the mass market. (I haven't followed BH for years so those may no longer be in the portfolio.)

The closest one to having a top 1% market is Michael Bloomberg. I am sure there are a lot of less than top 1% income people also subscribing to his news letters and listening to his media outlets.

jtk

[Pat Barry]

Hmm, and just how did the oldtimers get so smart, in the first place?

Somehow, one would become known as a "Master" of whatever "Craft" he was doing. Then, young boys were sent to study that Master's ways. Soon, this was made into an apprentiseship. Soo, after working for his room and board, buying a set of tools over the years, this fully trained Teenager, would go out into the world, Journeying around to find work as a......Journeyman. Might have been a Joiner, maybe a Mason, and even a painter. He served his time, until he was ready to make his "Masterpiece" for the respective Guild to approve of. IF it passed, he then could call himself a Master. He could even set up a shop to work from, take on apprentises IF he so desired. Back in the days of the Guild Houses, the ONLY allowed way to learn a trade, was to start as an apprentise to a master. DYIers were highly frowned upon. One learned their craft, applied their craft, and then taught what they had learned to the next group coming of age......But, that was such a long time ago..

back then, even George Wilson, esq. was expected to have and keep as many apprentises as he could afford to keep clothed and fed. Wages? Maybe......

Interesting thought process, but, what if some nobody just called himself master. Who was there to say otherwise? What was to stop this self proclaimed master from setting up shop and doing some less than masterful work?

[William Adams]

That's what the guilds enforced.

[Pat Barry]

That's what the guilds enforced.

Sure, but how did they communicate the status of some master far and wide? I can see it working locally perhaps, but over distances, and across borders, etc? I don't see the link. How did the guild enforce it? Strongarm tactics? Call a cop? Picketing?

[Jim Koepke]

Interesting thought process, but, what if some nobody just called himself master. Who was there to say otherwise? What was to stop this self proclaimed master from setting up shop and doing some less than masterful work?

Back in the day it was the guilds.

There are always charlatans who will try and pass themselves off as something they aren't. It has gone back far enough in human history to have caveat emptor understood by most even though it is in a language not commonly spoken in modern society except as references to legal, medical or other professional matters.

jtk

[William Adams]

All of the above --- this sort of thing is covered in history texts --- it was hard to pass off as a fraud --- remember, you had to do a masterpiece to be eligible to begin to study to be master (edit, not to be).

[Brian Holcombe]

If you were to start a business today, do you think it would be more successful targeting this elite group as opposed to targeting the average guy walking down the street?

How much would it cost to set up shop to build yachts?

I still feel the axiom, "if you make a product mostly for the higher classes you will live among the masses. If you make a product for the masses, you will live among the higher classes."

How many of the people that work in a high end auto dealership live in the wealthy communities? How many of the dealership owners? How many of them are actually owned by a company that sells automobiles in various price ranges?

Same question for those who work on making or servicing yachts. Do they also service lower cost sail boats?

Most of the people I can think of that have the big dollar homes in 'private' communities have usually done so by making a product that appeals to the masses.

Look at the Walton family. How many of the 1% do you think shop in their stores?

Then there are people like Bill Gates and all the other software, hardware and online geniuses. Ebay was made for the average person to buy and sell. Sure, the top 1% likely use Google, but it isn't set up just for them.

If you look at the list of the world's top 10 billionaires you won't find many that got there by only selling to the rich:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Wo...s_Billionaires

Berkshire Hathaway is a pricy stock, but it is mainly a holding company with interests in stocks like Coca Cola, See's Candy and many other companies focused on the mass market. (I haven't followed BH for years so those may no longer be in the portfolio.)

The closest one to having a top 1% market is Michael Bloomberg. I am sure there are a lot of less than top 1% income people also subscribing to his news letters and listening to his media outlets.

jtk

Jim,

Buffet made the base of his wealth investing money, with his target clients being people with money to invest. In fact he suggests this as being one of the best ways to amass wealth. Many people have done the same to create the base of their wealth, selling financial products.

[george wilson]

You made a masterpiece to become credited as a journeyman.

Here's how a journeyman found employment in a guild in Flanders as a harpsichord maker. Having learned the trade already,he found a master within the guild to prove himself with. He was allowed to live with and be fed by the master while he made a harpsichord. And no goofing off and wasting time. If the harpsichord passed muster with the guild,he was allowed to open himself a shop and be the master there. The harpsichord that he made while living with his host master was kept by that master,and sold to pay for his food and lodging while he was making it.

Now,of course,during his time elsewhere,working as a journeyman,he had to have lived frugally and saved his money to buy all the tools,benches and materials to open the shop. This could take him years to do.

The guilds were very powerful. In one case,a French violin maker's work went downhill in quality. The Guild made him burn all his instruments. He had to do this,and make better violins to be kept in the guild. And,unless he was in the guild,he was not allowed to make and sell violins,so he would be unable to make a living.

In some countries,like Italy,you HAD to o into the same trade as your father,like it or not. In more liberal countries,like England,your father could secure you an apprenticeship with any trade he liked. But,you were under the control of your father as he got to chose that trade. Wogdon,who became one of the most elite of the gunsmiths(specializing in dueling pistols) was the son of a saddler. Wogdon developed a trick to make his pistols shoot ON TARGET. Pistols had larger breeches than muzzles. They had little front sights,so would shoot higher than aimed. Wogdon secretly BENT the barrels of his pistols down a bit to make them shoot where aimed. Poems were written about how deadly Wogdons were.

[Tom M King]

Whether the old way or the new way, you can't target the "elite" market without a reputation, and that reputation doesn't come easy any kind of way. In any case, you don't start out with that reputation. Reputations worth anything are built over time.

[Jim Koepke]

Jim,

Buffet made the base of his wealth investing money, with his target clients being people with money to invest. In fact he suggests this as being one of the best ways to amass wealth. Many people have done the same to create the base of their wealth, selling financial products.

Buffet is a wise man. When he started out he bought the same stocks anyone else could buy. Of course he bought some companies outright. My father wasn't a believer. He didn't want to take stock in Berkshire Hathaway for his Hathaway shirt stock. So he took the money. He also bought a lot of companies for their retirement funds. Funds he could use to invest to make more than would need to be paid out by the defined retirement plans. (I am not a financial type, so I do not know all the details, just a bit of what I read and grew up learning along the way.)

I do not think there are many items in the Berkshire Hathaway portfolio that are makers of items aimed at the top 1%.

What was it that Buffet invested in? Mostly companies selling products to the general public. Now his stock is something that only the higher income folks among us can buy, but it wasn't always so.

Many of the 'financial products' that have made their sellers wealthy are mutual funds sold to everyday people planning for retirement.

Yes, it is possible to market a product that is strictly aimed at the wealthiest segment of society and get rich. It is more likely to get rich selling a lot of product to the general public.

jtk

[Stewie Simpson]

If you read the Frank Klaus bio; you get a clearer insight into the minimum standard set before submitting an application to the Master Craftsman's Guild.

At the end of four years, Frank became a certified journeyman cabinetmaker, on his way to becoming a master (which required one year of work in each of three different shops). http://www.frankklausz.com/homepage.html