I stopped by Tandy Leather this morning to pick up a belt blank and went into sticker shock. Everything I looked at had three prices: retail, gold and elite with quite a difference in price. Retail for the belt blank was $19.99. gold was $16.00 and the elite price was $12.00. I asked the young lady how a person goes about getting the elite price and she told me it was a membership thing. When she told me the yearly membership was $350 I almost fell over. At a 40% discount on everything, you would have to buy over $800 worth of merchandise a year to break even and I usually spend less than a couple hundred a year there.

Then came the surprise. She asked if I was a First Responder or Military. When I said I was retired military she told me the membership was free. Now I don’t have to avoid the place like I usually do since I’ll be paying what I consider a reasonable price for things.

With the membership, you also get $10.00 a month credit at their online library. I was able to download their Percussion pistol pattern pack in PDF format for a whopping $.82.

It's a pleasant surprise to find Tandy still exists.

I knew there was a Radio Shack some where!! Lol

quote:

Originally posted by egregore:
It's a pleasant surprise to find Tandy still exists.

I've followed Tandy Leather to three local local locations...each gets smaller ..each a shadow of its former self)...I'm glad they are still in the mix (somehow).

I thought elite was 150.00. I was going to buy a gold membership when she asked if I was a first responder and I said yes. Great to get the membership for free. Kudos to Tandy for doing that.

I just need to start doing the actual leather work instead of thinking and talking about it.

Having nothing better to do Curious, I did a little reading on Tandy. They're doing much stronger than I thought.

quote:

Originally posted by Bisleyblackhawk:

I've followed Tandy Leather to three local local locations...each gets smaller ..each a shadow of its former self)...I'm glad they are still in the mix (somehow).

I just couldn't remember seeing a store since I was a teenager in California. Somehow I managed to miss all the stores in Las Vegas, Phoenix and Knoxville, TN, where I have lived or go to often, since then.

 
If you can find the Tandy item on Amazon (often can), it sells for the Elite price. Go figure.