Forums/Snow Trac Coffee Mugs

Hey all, I'm now in possession of a limited number of custom made Forums/Snow Trac Coffee Mugs.

I'm going to be selling these and donating all the profits to the Forums Website. They will be for sale on Ebay shortly, but the reason I am listing one there is to try to help other people find our website. Most people came here after buying or bidding on an Ebay auction, so I figured I would post the mugs for sale there. If you look at the "SNOWFLAKE" logo on each side of the mug you can see the "www.forumsforums.com/snowtrac.html" logo is embedded into the logo. On one side it says "As easy to drive as your car" which came directly from one of the orginal factory brochures. The photo image was scanned from an actual 1963 magazine advertisment.

PLEASE BE PATIENT, but I will list them for sale here if Doc and I can figure out how to do that.

Good job Bob. They look good!

I'm shooting for March 1st for having the FF store software working.

Well I guess I should have ordered more mugs!!! It looks like most of them are sold and I have not even officially offered them for sale yet.

So here goes, I have only 6 mugs left for sale out of 36 that were made because I've gotten so many PMs and Emails asking for them.

• Cost = $5.99 each.
• Shipping = $3.50 -- International shipping will cost more???
• Total cost = $9.49

Bob,
double check your total, it should be a total of 9.49.

Doc said:

Bob,
double check your total, it should be a total of 9.49.

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And we now know why I have accountants who work for me


One more thing, I will only sell the remaining mugs to FORUM members! There is 1 mug for sale on Ebay, I put it there to attract people to our FORUM. But that is the ONLY mug that will be sold on Ebay. And the few remaining mugs are reserved only for FORUM members.

Sorry folks, I guess I should have made more!

Doc said:

Good job Bob. They look good!

I'm shooting for March 1st for having the FF store software working.

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No need to work on the FF store software for the mugs. I think they are sold out, or at least we are down to the last couple of mugs.

The Snow Trac mug on EBAY sold for $51.00.

I guess I will be sending a larger check to support the website than I had originally estimated. But that is a good thing. The whole point of making these mugs was to give people a fun way to support the forums, and a little bit of the cost of each mug would be donated to support this website. I guess a lot of the sales price of ONE mug will also go to support the website!

Will there be another production run of the mugs or is this the end?

bczoom said:

Will there be another production run of the mugs or is this the end?

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I have no plans for another production of these mugs.

I do have in the works a very nice Snow Trac/ForumForum duffle bag. Those bags will sell for approximately $29.00 each (still not yet dertermined, but they may be a bit lower priced than $29.00). The duffle bags are sized to fit perfectly under a Snow Trac seat. They are embroidered with a logo that has 13,000 stitches (normal logos have 5000 to 8000 stitches). The bags themselves are black and red. I believe I ordered 24 of those, and I will admit that I am worried about selling all of them. Those should arrive here in a few weeks, maybe a bit longer.

I have also had requests for a FF/Snow Trac fleece VEST or JACKET. The problem with those is that I would have to get PRE-Orders for those from people, because of the various sizes people wear. I'd need to collect money in advance, and then contract with the manufacturer to make them in only the sizes that were pre-ordered. So I really don't see anything like that being made, at least not at this time. But people do seem to want them.

One thing I may make up are INSULATED TRAVEL MUGS. I've been looking at those and thought that a Stainless Steel mug would be great, but then I found out that images on Stainless Steel will WASH off in the dishwasher. So I may do a travel mug at some point in the future, but it will probably be a plastic mug with a stainless liner, or perhaps all plastic.



Below is a graphic of the final design that will appear on the duffel bag. Also below is a photo of the bags on order. Ours will be RED & BLACK. They are 10" tall, 10" wide, 22" long.

Bob put me in for three duffels now instead of two.

bczoom said:

Will there be another production run of the mugs or is this the end?

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Brian, one last thought on this topic, we have a member here named Bjorn who posts as "oscarinn" from Iceland. He has a group in Iceland called the Icelandic Snow Trac Association and I've offered to make a dual mug with Bjorn. His site seems to be mostly photos, but it is in very early stages of development, there might be a possibility of a joint mug at some point in the future with them?

Below is the Icelandic & ForumsForums Snow Trac mug is pretty rough around the edges, it was just a first mock up. I'd probably use a different Snow Trac image. But again, these are just rough ideas. I'd be open to a future run of either of these or similar designs someday in the future, either as joint ventures with the other sites, or just on our own maybe as an 'annual' mug that we produce in small numbers every year?

Bob,

Are you actually ordering product with these logos? Haven't you heard of CafePress.com?

http://www.cafepress.com/cp/info/sell/makemoney

It's nice 'cause you don't have to purchase a bunch of product in advance. Although I suspect your profit margins will be a little lower you will have less headaches (although I suspect someone in your office gets to have the actual headaches).

Just a thought.

PB

I have heard of CafePress but yes I am ordering these products. They are being custom produced just for us. Most of the services, and CafePress is one of them, that do storefronts, don't really cater to the needs of small custom orders. If you have stock artwork, they can help, but in our case, the artwork all had to be made up (some of it by me, some of it by the companies).

I have not found a company that will do high quality embroidery on a piece by piece basis. Most require a minimum custom run of 24, 36, or more pieces. The company who is producing the duffel bags is a company that wanted to do some work for my company, they offered me the bags at almost 1/2 price, so I am getting $20 duffel bags for $11 each. The embroidery is a big cost and there was a $55 flat fee, the design work was $75 because it had to be re-worked a couple times, the stitching ran over budget and added $5 per bag, and then there will be shipping costs. I figure the bags will get to me at about $23 each, I'd like to give the FORUMS about $3-to-$5 donation per bag. So the price of the duffels is roughly $28-$30. Not too bad considering these are custom logos on $20 bags and the normal cost would be about $33-to-$35 for these bags (and that price would not include the $5 donation to the Forums) I would only do this if it meets 2 criteria-- #1, it must help Doc pay for the Forum site that we all enjoy for free, and #2, it must be a good value to the people who buy the merchandise.

But the cups were pretty easy and there are several sources that do low volume production at reasonable prices.

To put it into perspective, CafePress.com has a mug for $10.99 that I sold to everyone for $5.99. The $5.99 price included a little over $1 profit per mug to be sent to Doc to support the site. The $10.99 CafePress cost is just the raw cost of the mug.

You're a good business man Bob! And I suspect that a lot of the menial stuff is not handled by you personally either. Probably that same poor person that is scanning the manuals!

PBinWA said:

I suspect that a lot of the menial stuff is not handled by you personally either. Probably that same poor person that is scanning the manuals!

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I'm taking her out to lunch today for sushi. But only if she finishes the scans of Arlow's manuals first!!!

B_Skurka said:

I'm taking her out to lunch today for sushi.

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We can't do that around here in the winter. All the bait shops are closed.

bczoom said:

We can't do that around here in the winter. All the bait shops are closed.

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Careful or I will mail my lunch leftovers to you later today. . . should arrive at your place mid-next week and by that time I'd bet they would smell really good

A man of good taste!

Bob I would love to see some travel mugs made up (dont care what they are made of). I need about 10 and would love to see (post #10 top left example) on the mugs with the Snow Trac symble on the other side.

Travel mugs are a little harder than regular ceramic mugs.

A good quality mug, stainless interior, plastic exterior with a 1 color image would probably cost about $8-to-$9 per mug, if purchased in quantities of 36 to 72 mugs. I'm not sure if I could even get a 2 color logo on a travel mug. Also, the imprint space on most of the travel mugs is smaller than on a ceramic mug. The image size limit is usually about 1.5" to 2" tall while a ceramic mug image can usually be up to 2.5" tall. It makes a big differnce on what you can actually have on the mug.

If other people would like a travel mug, I can work on one, but I'm getting into my busy season at work, so it may take me a little while to get to it. (I do have a real job) In the mean time, if people would be interested in buying a travel mug, please let me know. I'd want to make sure we could sell close to 36 mugs before I place the order since I have to pay for all this and then hope they get sold.

Now if people are willing to pay more, we could do a small run order of 24 travel mugs (since you would take almost 1/2 of that order) but the price would probably be $12 per mug. The cost of a small run of mugs usually has the mugs at about $8.00 to $8.50 per mug, PLUS a "screen charge" that varies between $35 and $45 for the order depending on supplier. That "screen charge" stays the same no matter what size order you place. So with an average of $40 screen charge, divided by 24 mugs, the cost per mug for just the screen charge adds $1.67 per mug. Add shipping charges to the order, and add $1 per mug donation to Doc/ForumsForums and you can see why the price per mug for a small order would be $11 or $12?

For 36 mugs, the price per mug usually drops by $2.50 to $3 per mug, so we'd be looking at a rough mug cost of about $5.25. The screen charge is still going to be about $40, but the charge per mug drops to $1.11. Add shipping and $1 donation to Doc and the price we would pay would be about $8 to $8.50 per mug. AGAIN, these would be 1 color designs, most likely white ink on colored plastic.

Bob,
I would take 12 mugs then. Let me know.

Also do you have any coffee mugs left? If so I will take more. PM me on how many left.

Do those travel mugs keep insulation? Would they keep beer cold? Cheers

Snowcat Operations said:

Also do you have any coffee mugs left? If so I will take more. PM me on how many left.

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Why? Do you want to sell them on Ebay and make some money for yourself!?!

Mith said:

Do those travel mugs keep insulation? Would they keep beer cold?

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Yes they will keep beer cold! But I thought you English people drank your beer warm

No Bob I wont sell them on Ebay? What made you think that? Oh I get it. Pay back for all those dumb and insulting questions I was asking you on Ebay about the mugs. I should have guessed BigAl would tip you off I was the one asking those questions! I'll take what ever mugs left over to help out the forum (and get rid of all those dam thrift store coffee mugs my mother in law keeps bringing us AHHHHHhhhhh)

Also put me in for your future order of Travel Mugs. (12)

Bob,

I would like to order a duffel bag and would definatly have a fleece if you went down that route in the future? Travel mug, i would want 2 at the moment.

I'd like to say thanks for putting the time in and doing this for all us snow trac fan's, owners and snow cats in general, cant leave old 'Duke' out on a Lim can we now!!

Cheers.

Tommo said:

cant leave old 'Duke' out on a Lim can we now!!

Cheers.

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Tommo, I've given that final point a lot of thought. I tend to think we can leave him out there!

B_Skurka said:

Tommo, I've given that final point a lot of thought. I tend to think we can leave him out there!

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Gee ! Thanks Bob ! I love you too...

Would you hand me that hand saw there.....?? . I think I would rather saw 'the limb" the rest of the way off by myself!

"Mean old coot!"... Oh sorry!! I thought I was just thinking that .I did'nt realize I had typed it .

Snowcat Operations said:

No Bob I wont sell them on Ebay? What made you think that? Oh I get it. Pay back for all those dumb and insulting questions I was asking you on Ebay about the mugs. I should have guessed BigAl would tip you off I was the one asking those questions! )

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HeY !!! I did not say a word !!! Man o man ,,, Kristi owners get blamed for everything around here !

If the shoe fits ........... lol.

The MUGS will ship out of here Wednesday!

Sorry to everyone for the delay, but I wanted to include a CD that contained as much information as possible and figured it would be easier for me to send the CDs out with the mugs.

Each CD disk will contain the following:

• 196? parts manual
• 1963 FULL parts & users manual
• 1967 parts manual
• 1972 parts manual
• 1972 users manual
• 1975 parts manual
• 1975 users manual
• 1976 SNOW MASTER parts manual
• Heater manual (in German) for the original gas heaters (BTW, Gordon Robertson is working on getting this translated, if he gets that completed I will pass that on to those who request it)
• Dan Brokaw's track layout pattern
• Every article posted here on the forums, in high resolution PDF format (may require Adobe Acrobat Reader 7.0, which is a free download from Adobe)
• and a bunch of other files for things that may or may not be of interest

But at least they are done and will ship tomorrow!