Hamond Times

We hope you had a good holiday season and will return to work recharged and renewed.

Sadly, we have to start the new year talking about price increases.

Over the past year, the prices of 3 major metals have increased: copper, zinc and nickel.

Zinc has, in the last year, gone from 80 cents to $2. In the year before that, it went from 50 cents to 80 cents. So in the last year it more than doubled. In the last 2 years, quadrupled. Zinc is used, in one way or another, in almost all rust-proofing. It is also a significant component of the alloy Brass.

Copper has, over the last year, gone from $2 to $4 (although, at the moment, it's fallen off that high and is around $3. Two years ago it was $1.50, three years ago $1. Copper, in addition to being used on it's own, is the other major component of Brass.

Nickel has gone from $6 a year ago to $16 now. Nickel is the component of stainless steel most responsible for it's stainless properties.

(All of the above prices are in US $.)

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.







As you can see from the charts above, the raw component cost of anything made from Copper or Brass has more than doubled in the last year alone, more than tripled in the last 2 years.

Rust-free steel is made one of two ways - regular steel is coated, either before or after manufacturing, with zinc, or else it's made into stainless steel with the addition of nickel. For either rust-proofing method, prices have jumped enormously in the last year. How much will depend on the type of plating (for regular steel) or the grade of steel (for stainless).

So what does this all mean for our customers? If, like many of our customers, you buy a significant quantity ahead on blanket purchase orders, we have been able, for a while, to shield you from this runup in prices. But as stocks of raw materials run out and we or our suppliers have to purchase new supplies, our prices are going to have to rise.

How much? It's hard to generalize. Each part we make has different proportions of raw material and other costs associated. Some parts may rise by 5% in final price, others, 15% or more.

As your blankets run out and need to be renewed, we will be informing you about the new prices. At that time, we can also discuss with you ways of moderating the price increases.