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A truly sad day - Mercenary's Tailor is closed

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Sir James A:
Allan has worked himself into the ground providing us with great armor at fantastic prices. He is *no longer* accepting orders.  :( He is going to finish out existing orders for those of us lucky enough to have made them before. ;)

I really like the armor I have of his. I wish he could keep making it, but I understand his decision. It's a sad, sad day for me, as there's much I want from him that I didn't have the money to buy before the opportunity passed. :'(

(He posted the closing announcement on Facebook)

Sir Brian:
Well I think most of us was expecting that. Still a shame since he is such a talented armorer.  :(

Brings home the point of taking good care of what armor you do have because now his work will be come "classics".

Sir Edward:

Yeah, this is quite heartbreaking. I could see ordering a full kit from him sometime down the line. I think he had a few things holding him back. For one thing, he really undercharged people. If he wasn't bringing in enough cash per sale to cover that sale's costs in materials and postage, there's a problem. Also, I think he could have benefited from a lot better pictures on the website.

He said he found that people tended not to order unless he did his 20% off sales. This is probably true, but it's also possible to shoot yourself in the foot with those kinds of sales. If people know you're going to frequently do sales like that, they'll wait until the next one, and you've effectively lowered the prices on all your products. I think he needed to price things such that 20% off still put him in the black, and the normal prices were even more lucrative. This will reduce impulsive purchases, of course, since the prices would no longer be as low. But at least the pricing itself wouldn't be driving you out of business.

But it's also possible that the downturn in the economy is enough to ruin the business. Armor is a luxury, and those are the first things to take the hit.

This really saddens me, since it's so rare to find an armorer that puts the customer first. And his stuff is solid. This is a huge loss to the community.

Sir Ulrich:
Now where am I gonna find a place to buy knee cops and whatnot? I don't know anywhere else that sells them...

Sir James A:
It definitely wasn't unexpected, but it's one of those things I hoped he could pull through. It's like when you have a sick, elderly relative - you know things are bad, you know things could take a turn for the worse at any point and you do what you can to make the best of the unknown time left, and yet, some days you just can't help but think things are going so well that they will get better and have many more years of life ... until you get the bad news.

I just took a look at the website. He has the out of business note on the front page now (he didn't earlier), but I'm 99% sure the pricing of items has been adjusted (upwards, as they should have been). I'm not sure what to make of that; maybe it happened a few weeks ago and I just didn't catch it. It's "Right Click > Save As" time for me now, he has a lot of period original pieces and I don't want to see those pics or the pics of his work vanish.

What makes me even sadder is that (as of now) he wants to walk away from armoring entirely, and has no plans to do it on the side, even raising prices and taking less sales at a higher profit. I like his work and I'd pay higher for it because I know it's done well and his articulation and craftsmanship are unmatched for the price - which, of course also led to the situation he's in now. :(

Sir Ulrich, lots of places to get simple knee and elbow cops. Depends on if you want them plain or fancy, mild or stainless. Let me know which kind you want, and I can point you towards a few options.

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