Hi everyone, this is just an update of what’s been going on behind the scenes at Tooltique.
As we are now entering the summer we were faced with workshops and storerooms that were in need of a complete reorganisation and clean up. It got to the stage where we simply couldn’t operate efficiently due to the masses of tools being piled up in every area beyond the storerooms.
This as you can appreciate has also hindered our ability to identify and locate different types of tools and we were often working on what was at the front rather than selecting what was needed.
So for the past 3 weeks, we have had a root and branch major sort out and reorganisation plus the removal of 18 months of accumulated dust that had amassed everywhere other than the immediate work areas. All this took place whilst wearing masks in the recent heatwave.
Those who are fully up to speed will also realise we have been working on the new aspect of the business on antiquetools.co.uk which will handle the tools in their original form and a nice selection of desirable antique tools.
This work on this new website has involved a highly complex bespoke development to ensure the user experience is a good one and it has the management system to handle the order/winning bids process in customer’s carts. This has been a year’s work so far and the development and improvements are being added on a weekly basis.
This intern meant we had to switch and upgrade servers, hence why there was a little downtime last week. Whilst we have been doing this we have also improved things on Tooltique to improve our admin area and the overall speed of the website. Other tweaks to the operating system have been done to improve the website performance and general maintenance so again we apologise for any inconvenience caused.
We are again back to work in the workshop and there will be a better more diverse selection of tools being added from today onwards. It’s always a case of all systems going here but sometimes this isn’t transmitted directly through our online shop.
Tooltique has matured and is bringing more to the market with positive changes that will bring our customers a whole cycle of buying using and selling their unwanted vintage & Antique tools. This has taken many months to develop and we hope our customers will get to enjoy what is to come but like Tooltique these things do improve over time.
We aren’t standing still, that’s for sure, and have many other aspects that are currently being explored that will eventually enhance our customer’s knowledge and appreciation of what is important about the vintage users of collectable tools.
Note regarding tool prices.
As predicted in previous articles there has been a surge in opportunistic selling of old tools both by the public and new tool dealers on platforms such as eBay. This has forced prices to rise and it will also cause extra problems for buyers using inexperienced sellers with limited knowledge.
Old tool prices have risen everywhere over the pandemic and this has been fuelled by increased demand and the inflation caused when governments print money, let’s hope this latter aspect doesn’t get out of control. Our prices have always been controlled by what happens directly in the unrestored user tool market, often these un-refurbished prices are higher than ours without an expert eye or the attention needed to get the tools to perform as they could. New tool prices are rising too, this has to happen with the increased cost of raw materials and other factors coursing this. I guess labour costs and the reduced buying power of fiat currencies due to money printing will also play a part in this in the future.
It has to be said that prices had been deflated for some time and as people have learned about the quality of old tools possess the demand has steadily risen. Prices now are probably about right and those who got in early made astute purchases. The supply of old tools is limited and many are now in new hands so the demand is likely to outstrip this supply but this is where the buyer needs to become more cautious.
