For the first time since… well, pretty much ever, I am updating the prices on Wa-chur-ed Observatory products.  In most cases the change is an increase and the reason is increased labor costs.  I see that as a good thing, since it means that people all along the supply chain are being paid more for their work – including me.  Over the years the component and material costs have increased only a little and I have been able to offset those costs with increased efficiency in my manufacturing processes (such as moving to CNC routing of some components), but it is now obvious that labor deserves more.  I have kept the increases as small as possible, of course.  Some products, such as Backlit Prints, Astro-Flash and the Calendar have not increased in price (at this time), while labor-intensive products such as the MRT and PerfectStar have increased as much as 25%.

At the same time, one product has actually decreased in price!  I have made some small changes to the way I make the popular Space Windows that significantly reduce the cost, despite being somewhat labor intensive.  From the consumer’s perspective the only difference is that instead of being 4 inches in diameter, the new version is 1/8 inch smaller, as that allows much more efficient use of the film used to print the images.

I hope that you, my customers, will understand and support these price changes.  PerfectStar, my flagship product, is still priced significantly lower than competitive products and I am very proud of it.  My biggest seller, the MRT is a unique product with no real competition, but is priced at little more than a conventional T ring.

Thank you for your continued support!