OT: Murray's Iron Works closing after 50 years

Saw this auction come up today. It looks like this shop produced some incredible work and had plenty of customers, what happened? Overseas competition? Contraction in the market? It breaks my heart to see places like this close. Murray's Iron Works

brianweldor said:

Saw this auction come up today. It looks like this shop produced some incredible work and had plenty of customers, what happened? Overseas competition? Contraction in the market? It breaks my heart to see places like this close. Murray's Iron Works

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Not a single price on their website. No loss if they bite the bullet.

That practice SUCKS.

That Link goes to a Furniture site...almost looks like a hack or spam

I fixed the link. No spam, but that page had pictures of the various shops (blacksmithing, machine, finishing). Don't know why it didn't work

One of the most successful business owner I know told me once that you must be vigilant every day if you have any hope of staying in business. He ran a landscaping and construction company, far more lucrative work than a boutique furniture manufacturer. Another likely reality is that after 50 years the person or people who started the company retired and the new owners/operators walked into it thinking they had it made and ran it into the ground.

SeaMoss said:

Not a single price on their website. No loss if they bite the bullet.

That practice SUCKS.

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I think you meant "bite the dust". I don't think you looked at the website closely enough. There are several items for sale with prices listed. Not all of the items shown have prices because the company is CLOSED.

brianweldor said:

I think you meant "bite the dust". I don't think you looked at the website closely enough. There are several items for sale with prices listed. Not all of the items shown have prices because the company is CLOSED.

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You are right about the biting, thanks Short circuit in the control room ...

But on the other, I looked at five or six items. No prices on the catalog page, okay maybe they pulled the prices off everything on the site becasue they went bust (seems unlikely) but I pulled several of the pdfs too. No prices. It is extremely unlikely that they pulled all their pdf's and remade them to remove the prices as they were going under.

I despise that practice. If every company in the world who did that went broke, I would cheer.

How do the rest of y'all feel about that ?

Your FIX didn't work. I hope I didn't get a virus!!

I won't click it again!

SeaMoss said:

You are right about the biting, thanks Short circuit in the control room ...

But on the other, I looked at five or six items. No prices on the catalog page, okay maybe they pulled the prices off everything on the site becasue they went bust (seems unlikely) but I pulled several of the pdfs too. No prices. It is extremely unlikely that they pulled all their pdf's and remade them to remove the prices as they were going under.

I despise that practice. If every company in the world who did that went broke, I would cheer.

How do the rest of y'all feel about that ?

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What I hate even more is when certain sites make you "click for quote". What, they can't just tell you how much this thingy is? Of course, the real reason is they want your phone and/or email so they can bug the crap out of you.

Richard King said:

Your FIX didn't work. I hope I didn't get a virus!!

I won't click it again!

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If you use firefox, just right mouse over the link then look down to the status bar across the bottom. Or just type in < m u r r a y s i w DOT com >. That'll take you there directly. Remove the spaces and the <>

p.s. I think the furniture was mostly ugly, but that's just personal taste. Surprises me they could last fifty years selling that stuff tho

SeaMoss said:

You are right about the biting, thanks Short circuit in the control room ...
.
.
I despise that practice. If every company in the world who did that went broke, I would cheer.

How do the rest of y'all feel about that ?

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For "retailers", and DB driven to reflect current prices and promotional sales, I'd tend to agree, save that the thought of your claiming to have any semblance of a "control room" makes me suspicious as Hell you have a Gordon'esque off-topic shit-stirring agenda rolling already...

Guy's on holiday. Some things just don't NEED emergency back-up generators.

Monarchist said:

... thought of your claiming to have any semblance of a "control room" makes me suspicious ...

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I think it's from a Bonzo Dog song but can't locate the reference in the attic I call a brain. Or it might have been from Hair.

Actually, I don't call it a brain anymore. Nowadays it's more like a used litterbox

I still really hate people who won't put their prices on their product. Are they ashamed of themselves or something ?

They were mostly wholesale, and "to the trade"- decorators and architects. I certainly dont consider them "master blacksmiths". In essence, they were a lighting manufacturer, who used some relatively simple forged elements. There used to be a lot of lighting manufacturers in LA, but the margins just arent very high, compared to aerospace, medical parts, or even high end mansions. These guys were no way good enough to get the high end mansion jobs.
Guys like Mike Bondi get those jobs, in Beverly Hills or wherever.
compare his work to theirs- http://www.michaelbondi.com/

I was in this business, albeit on a much smaller scale, in the 80s and 90s, and the writing was on the wall then.
Shops like Murrays are expected to sell at 50% retail to stores, and maybe 70% retail if you are lucky to decorators- often only 50% there as well.
The Pakistanis, Chinese, and Indians started to jump into the lighting and furniture markets Murrays served as early as 88 or so, and their prices, then, were 30% or so of Murrays expected wholesale. I used to make a barstool that wholesaled for $125, and freight was $12 to $18 per to most US cities. The Chinese started doing watered down knockoffs for $25, including freight. I dont know how they did it, but I stopped making those kinds of things and moved upmarket to more custom stuff.
Murrays was still living the 70s dream.
And I had my shop south of Slauson, where they are- it still aint cheap. LA is great for manufacturing, in terms of suppliers and subs, but they charge real money. Those crappy side tables and chandeliers that Murrays lists would need to wholesale for 5 to 10 grand apiece to make the numbers work. And the chinese are coming in at a grand. I would guess the real estate is worth far more than the business model, the equipment, and the inventory combined.

I just looked at the auction site- not much in the way of equipment. A pretty rode hard waterjet, some angle rolls, and a bunch of old welders. Some manual lathes and mills that are probably 40 years old at the youngest, which have been used roughly for a long time by guys who were not exactly toolroom machinists. Foundry equipment, yeah, but simple, old, manual, and for aluminum with no particular quality requirements beyond just no big voids.
Not exactly rocket science.
Aside from the waterjet, I didnt see a single cnc- the tech was mostly about 1975 at max.
A few anvils, a lot of oddball stock.

There are some really amazing shops in LA- but this was not one of em.

Thanks for the informative reply. I was recently reading an interview with the owner of Rose Iron Works, and he was discussing the uncertain future of the company (shrinking market, kids don't want the family business) and he mentioned that they used to make some items for Pottery Barn and similar stores but "NAFTA put an end to that".

brianweldor said:

... he mentioned that they used to make some items for Pottery Barn and similar stores but "NAFTA put an end to that".

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That's what I mean about "free trade". It's all political. Other people will say, "Oh but look how it benefits the consumer !"

"Free Trade" is just a name for a government decision between which groups of people are going to get screwed and which ones get to cut a fat hog. It doesn't really have anything to do with trade. Trade happens all by itself when people want something some other place makes.

And I don't care who they sell to, if you are going to have a website with product, put the damn prices on the things !! Who goes to the grocery store, loads up the cart, then waits to the checkout stand to find out how much everything costs ?

Ries said:

They were mostly wholesale, and "to the trade"- decorators and architects. I certainly dont consider them "master blacksmiths". In essence, they were a lighting manufacturer, who used some relatively simple forged elements. There used to be a lot of lighting manufacturers in LA, but the margins just arent very high, compared to aerospace, medical parts, or even high end mansions. These guys were no way good enough to get the high end mansion jobs.
Guys like Mike Bondi get those jobs, in Beverly Hills or wherever.
compare his work to theirs- http://www.michaelbondi.com/

I was in this business, albeit on a much smaller scale, in the 80s and 90s, and the writing was on the wall then.
Shops like Murrays are expected to sell at 50% retail to stores, and maybe 70% retail if you are lucky to decorators- often only 50% there as well.
The Pakistanis, Chinese, and Indians started to jump into the lighting and furniture markets Murrays served as early as 88 or so, and their prices, then, were 30% or so of Murrays expected wholesale. I used to make a barstool that wholesaled for $125, and freight was $12 to $18 per to most US cities. The Chinese started doing watered down knockoffs for $25, including freight. I dont know how they did it, but I stopped making those kinds of things and moved upmarket to more custom stuff.
Murrays was still living the 70s dream.
And I had my shop south of Slauson, where they are- it still aint cheap. LA is great for manufacturing, in terms of suppliers and subs, but they charge real money. Those crappy side tables and chandeliers that Murrays lists would need to wholesale for 5 to 10 grand apiece to make the numbers work. And the chinese are coming in at a grand. I would guess the real estate is worth far more than the business model, the equipment, and the inventory combined.

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My Dad was an architect / interior designer for restaurants, bars and, show rooms primarily. The bar stools, chair and table bases were being made in Mexico in the 1960's. I remember containers arriving at the shop and doing triage on them as a kid.

I was the gofer for the shop as a kid and went to all our suppliers, never recall going to the Murray place. Not big in commercial work in the 70's from my perspective. We did all Bill Harrah's work, many Vegas projects, got into hotel work with the first MGM in Vegas and Reno.

Like you said, there was a lot of these shops in L.A. in the 60's-80's Kinda sad to see hand work die in the state though, mass production or not, it gave a number of people jobs and purpose.

Steve

the reason they dont have prices on the website is they dont sell retail on the internet.
the website is a sales tool for selling to lighting dealers, furniture stores, and decorators and architects- and there would be a lot of different prices for the same thing, depending on quantity, and who you are.

one of the things Amazon has done is convince casual web surfers that every business in the world sells cheap imported crap that is made by the the millions in some factory in China or Pakistan or Mexico.

but US industry, classicly, had a manufacturer/distributor/retailer structure, and retail customers NEVER knew the wholesale prices.
I used to buy from all kinds of companies somewhat like Murray- stamping companies, metal perforators, wholesale lighting parts suppliers, custom fastener companies, glass casting companies, textured stainless sheet rollers, and on and on.

NONE of them ever put prices on the website- and never will.

They dont want to sell you one table.
They want to sell Steve's Dad 200 of em for a project, and the price will be based on paint finish, tabletop stone color, height, quantity, shipping date, and payment terms.
None of which are the same from job to job.

When I was selling furniture and knickknacks wholesale, my prices were not online, and if I sent a pricesheet to somebody, it was understood it was merely a starting point. And discounts varied widely, depending on many factors, including the "pain in the ass" factor.
If I was doing custom work for a housewife who called herself a decorator and did 30 grand a year in projects (Peanuts, in other words) her discount was going to be very different than the price I sold stuff to Hammecher Schlemmer, or Nordstrom, or Neiman Marcus. And I sold to all of them.

Basically, if the prices are on the website, you can be pretty sure you are the sheep, not the shearer.
It makes things easy and convenient, but it also means, by definition, that you have a big target painted on your back, with the word "sucker" printed under it.

When I buy 3 tons of stainless, there aint no price on the website- and if I get 3 bids, they wont even be the same next week, or if I talk to a different salesman.
Camel traders still run the world, behind the curtains. And they like it that way, with you thinking the "prices" you see on the website are the whole story.