Or, P/P - the ratio between what something costs, and how well it performs. You may well think that if something costs more, then it must be better. That should be true, but it’s not. At least not consistently. I’ve done experiments. By that, I mean I’ve sampled (bought) many items, then kept careful track of how well they tasted, smoked, lasted, or any other quality critical to judging performance. I’ve also kept track of what each item cost.
Finally, I compared the P/P ratio of each item.
That probably sounds a little crazy; the sort of finicky, obsessive, crack-pot behavior you would expect from a diehard tightwad. Not so. I have no qualms about spending money. I do care about getting the best value I can for the least amount of dollars spent. Is that crazy? I don’t think so! Moreover, it’s not that much work.
What I discovered has been well worth the modest effort put forth.
Many, many, high-priced products are not worth the sticker price. Equal, and sometimes better quality can be had at one, or more, price points lower. The trick is to be able to tell the difference.
If you can’t tell the difference, then there is no point in buying anything except at the lowest price. People who try to impress their friends with their good taste by buying only the most expensive products generally fool neither their friends, nor themselves. You can’t buy good taste. But you can buy tasty things for less than you thought possible, by comparing price
to performance.
I buy very little. I keep things until they break or wear out. I have no desire to own the glitziest or latest. I eat simple food, and small amounts even of that. My, “cup runneth over”, because all I have or want is a small cup. That said, there are exceptions. Mostly, two - good whiskey and good cigars. The,” good”, part of each is expensive. Even that wouldn’t be a problem if I consumed both as modestly as I do most everything else.
Unfortunately, I love the taste and aroma of good whiskey and good cigars. I also want to enjoy them more often than just now and then. Worse yet, I’m keenly aware of the qualities that constitute the, “good”, part of each. Cheap versions with lesser quality will not do.
What to do, what to do?
I applied the rule of P/P to whiskey and cigars. I sampled and compared. After several months I could distinguish between, bad, ok, good, and excellent. I could also distinguish between a proper price and an inflated price.
My preferred whiskey is bourbon. I didn’t study any other type of whiskey. Had I done so, my research would have been pointlessly extended to years, rather than months. My final choice was: Ezra Brooks. It’s a Kentucky sour mash bourbon that is nearly indistinguishable from Jack Daniels. It costs about half the price of Jack Daniels. Don’t tell anyone. They might raise the price.
My preferred cigar is, “hecho a mano”, or in English, handmade. That’s not a particular cigar, but a process. Machine made cigars are uniformly bad. Machines are incapable of rolling tobacco leaves. The closest they can manage is chopped-up leaves bound by a wrapper made of bits of tobacco leaf mixed with wood pulp and held together with resin and glue. That’s why they stink.
I confined my investigations to only handmade cigars. Early on, a friend guided me to the JR Cigar Catalog. JR Cigar bills themselves as, The world’s largest cigar store”. The buy their stock in huge volume. That’s why they can sell cigars for significantly less than any local shop. Even so, most of the brands they offer are ridiculously high-priced. 300+ dollars for 20 cigars is unthinkable, at least for me. Yet, they apparently sell them - to the wealthy, or the foolish, or perhaps to guys who smoke just one cigar a month.
I scan their catalog for the few affordable brands I can find.
These vary from month, to month. These reasonably priced brands seem to come mainly from Honduras, or Nicaragua. I don’t know why. I’m grateful they come from anywhere. My current batch is Rosa Cuba Angels @ $25.65 per 20. I can’t think of any reasonable reason for cigars to cost so much. They’re just rolled up leaves. I suppose they do it because they can - what the market will bear, and all that.
If more buyers used my evaluation device of P/P maybe the prices would come down.
That said, there are some things that cost more because they must. If we rate any product/service on a scale from 1-10, and consider 1 as adequate, 5 as good, and 10 as excellent, then we can illustrate why some things must cost more.
Price points from 1-5 are often arbitrary. The quality range between adequate and good is not that great. That’s the range where P/P is most useful. The quality range between 5-10 can be very large between each point. Getting from 5 to 6, or 7 to 8, etc. might require considerably more expense in materials and labor to the producer.
For example: If you insist on leather as opposed to vinyl, then you are necessarily going to pay more, and so on, with all products that are innately more valuable. Increased labor and enhanced skill also cost more. You will naturally pay more for the best craftsmanship, and the best design than you will for the average. Everyone understands this.
It only becomes confusing when something is priced much higher than it seems to be worth. This happens most often in the range between 5-6. There are times when making something better than average will entail more effort than seems apparent to casual perception.
Wernher Von Braun, or maybe it was one of the astronauts, once said, referring to his rocket, “ 150,000 parts, all made by the lowest bidder”.
If you can’t tell the difference, then don’t buy it. If you can tell the difference, then you must decide if the value of the increased quality you do perceive is worth the increased price. P/P is still the most useful tool for deciding.
In the case of art and other items of ineffable value such as family heirlooms, and legacies, then P/P must give way to P/E (Priceless/Exorbitant). That means you’re going to have to pay through the nose or go without, and, in the case of the truly priceless; it is literally not for sale for any price.
I heard, somewhere, a story about an American tourist in Mexico. The tourist had come across a single chair of wonderful crafting. He asked a man standing nearby if the chair was for sale. “How much”, asked the American?
“$20.”, said the Mexican.
“How much if I buy twelve of them”?
“Aah, then”, the man replied. “Then it would be $480”. “What…why”? The tourist asked for an explication. “Making this one chair was a joy for me. Making the same chair, twelve times, would be work”.
Some things cost too much.
Some things can’t be bought at all.