slate prices alone at $100 for the
operator buyer of a table .
(Manufacturers themselves declined
to estimate the projected table price
increase at year's end.)
Mark Struhs, marketing director
at Dynamo Corp. termed the slate
price rise "incredible ... and projec-
tions indicate there will be a drastic
increase next year." Struhs said he
saw no effect on the demand for
tables, however.
Effects on an operator
While price is "the most critical
issue we face ," said Charles Milhem,
president of The Valley Company,
he analyzed the operator's position
in a time of rising table cost this way:
" From the operator's point of view,
the value of his existing tables will
increase -
re-sale value will
increase- to where there are some
benefits to him."
Over the long term, tables will
retain more "intrinsic value ," in other
words .
The strategy of the table operator
should be to go to 50-cent play at this
point in time when there is cogent
reason to do so, he suggested.
Valley, as other manufacturers are
coming to do, is shipping its tables
set for 50-cent play. The operator will
have to take active steps to change
back to quarter-per-play.
The point was made that slate of
the smaller dimensions is more
readily available, but that the popular
movement in pool tables is to the
larger models, requiring larger
dimensions of slate-therefore the
more costly raw product in their
manufacture.
Milhem suggested the operator
stress the larger table, however ,
because "players want it," and it can
be a better draw for 50-cent play than
the small billiard tables.
Coupled with this, however, must
be the price-conscious fact that
"there has been some disjointment"
in the slate cost at the larger-cut
sizes.
Alan Schafer, vice president for
finance at The Valley Co., said "the
burden" in this pinch is on the
manufacturers. Valley had required
some three weeks' plant shutdown
over a four-month period, he said.
But he foresaw a harder shortfall on
"the smaller manufacturers."
Echoed around the coin-op tables
industry was the complaint that pool
table production has frequently been
"behind" with the material shortage .
For the operator, though, the
tables remain "a super investment,"
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said Simon at U .S . Billiards.
"Pool tables are slow selling,
although their income has increased
somewhat," said Simon at U .S.
Billiards. "Even if there's a forced
price increase, they're still a super
investment because of their low
service requirements and excellent
income," he continued.
An irony in the picture for
American manufacturers was noted
by Schafer at Valley. One domestic
source of slate, a Pennsylvania
quarry , was closed several years ago
by the U.S. OSHA agency for on-
the-job safety.
In addition to the available foreign
raw material's cost comes the cost of
transportation to U .S . m a nu-
facturing facilities such as Valley's at
Bay City, Michigan; Irving Kaye's a t
Stamford, Connecticut ; and
Dynamo's at Grand Prairie, Te xas .
Alternative natural materials, such
as marble or granite, are judged by
the manufacturers not to have slate's
stability. The other rocks are less
brittle, say the produce rs of pool
tables. But the cost hike in slate has
made manufacturers take anothe r
look at alternatives- which one firm
reports has cost half a million dollars
to research as viable tabl e -top
material, in the past 15 years or so.
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