How Things Have Changed!

From the standpoint of the retail lumber dealer, lumber things have changed as much in California as the gal did who left home a decided brunette and came back a platinum blonde. No, friends, things aren't the same as they used to be in the good old days "befo' de wah." And the lumber dealer who is able to spend no more than half of his time doing head work and hand work both of a kind he never dreamed of in days gone by, is a lucky guy. The successful dealer must be more than a skillful merchant. fle must be an economic and commercial and industrial tight-rope walker of the finest sort. We used to say that the successful lumber merchant had to be "on his toes." He still does; but his toes are on a tight-wire stretched high up. The day of the salesman has gone. And the day of the procurer has come. And the dealer who succeeds in procuring sufficient lumber to keep his business top side up these days, deserves a medal for management.

Just a few thoughts to illustrate the point. Take Southern California in particular. This was by long standing a rough green lumber market. Most of the Fir lumber the dealers purchased came by water from tidewater mills not equipped to season and surface their product like most rail mills do. Southern California dealers could handle that rough, green stock because most of them had storage space for air-drying and the facilities for further manufacturing or at least dressing. And those who did not could secure such services from the larger distributing yards. Before the war this water-borne green lumber came to the dealers of this territory at a much lesser transportation rate than rail mills had to pay for bringing in dry lumber. Just prior to the beginning of the war, however, a considerable amount of small dimension was coming in in green 2 inch thickedge /a inch off, hit or miss, and a small amount came in S4S green-not at a saving in freight for the dealers but in order that more footage could be stored in the lumber vessels to help the owners meet mounting operating costs.

Today this district faces an entirely different situation. A very small amount of lumber is coming to Southern California by water. The freight rate is about double the prewar rate. Because there are few lumber vessels left in operation on this coast the great bulk of lumber that is coming in is rough and green, comes by rail, and because of its great weight the freight cost is terrific. Most of what the dealer can get his hands on is in unsalable sizes larger than the boards and dimension for which he and his trade longs. The Administrator for the government will not release to these dealers more than ten per cent of each shipment in boards, 4 inch dimension, and 6 inch dimension, which means that they must take at least 70 per cent of the lumber they can get in large dimension, timbers, planks, and uppers, most of which must be remanufactured to more or less extent to be salable and usable. And most of this remanufacture has to be done on old slow-speed machinery which comprises the average equipment owned by or available to the dealer.

As this is written there has been a considerable slabken-

By Jack Dionne

ing in the market for green, rough Fir timbers (with the exception of stringer sizes), and the dealer is being offered such stock more freely and in greater quantity than at any time since the emergency began. A man on the outside looking in would promptly jump to the conclusion that all the dealer has to do now is to buy plenty of this available material, rip or resaw it into the smaller sizes desired by his trade, and get started doing business with a bang. But now the present price ceilings raise their threatening heads. For the ceiling on timbers is higher than the ceiling on boards and dimension which may be ripped from these larger units. So every time the dealer cuts a timber down, he cuts down the price he can charge for the sizes he is creating. And what is more, the present regulations do NOT permit him to add the cost of ripping, resawing, or remanufacturing. Thus, if a dealer ripped some 6x6's into boards or 2 inch dimension, he cuts down the sales price of every foot of material, and is out whatever it costs him to do the machining.

This situation, of course, absolutely prohibits any wholesaler from indulging in any such habit as buying timbers and cutting them up small and selling them, because he can add nothing for his expense, and he must sell for the lower ceiling prices of the smaller sized items. But the dealer, on the other hand (or even on the same hand if you like it better that way) CAN do such merchandising if he wants to. And right now plenty of them DO. For while the dealer loses something on the price of the stock when it is cut up and also must go to the expense of the ripping or resawing, he has the advantage of his retail mark-up, and the recent increase in the retail mark-up has in reality put a lot of dealers back in the lumber business who have practically been on the cold outside for some time past.

SO TODAY \VE FIND a world of dealers buying rough, green Fir timbers coming in by rail, paying the tremendous freight charges on the 33(X) pound per thousand stock, resawing, ripping, dressing, and even kiln-drying the reducedsize lumber, absorbing all that cost and then selling it to their trade. Many of them claim that the margin of profit remaining from the retail mark-up is practically swallowed up by the increased costs; but they have the satisfaction of keeping their business going, and supplying some of their customer needs. ft is reported on the best authority that all of the commercial dry kilns and resawing and remanufacturing plants in Southern California are working day and night trying to keep up with the demand. A whale of a business is being done in this way. The streets are filled with trucks hauling lumber from retail yards to remanufacturing or kiln drying plants; and then hauling the worked lumber back.

One thing can be said: it is getting considerable lumber to people who need it and have previously not been able to get it; and it has put some life back in the retail lumber game.

The retail lumbermen of California are at this moment striving through their associations to bring pressure to bear on the authorities at Washington to permit them to add the cost of resawing, ripping, and remanufacturing big and usable items of lumber into smaller and practical items. Up to this moment this is forbidden, so long as the items into which the timbers are reduced are standard lumber items. But a dealer may accept a service of cutting large stuff into smaller items of any kind that are not standard lumber items and therefore covered by a price ceiling, and charge for that service. The biggest thing the dealers of this territory are hoping for now is a revised order that will permit them to charge for remanufacturing. They are likewise clamoring through their associations for an equalization of the ceiling prices on small timbers with those of boards and dimension, so that they can rip timbers into boards and dimension without losing ceiling values. They don't care whether the price of the timbers is lowered, the price of the small stock is increased, or a little of each; but they hope for equalization.

This is all we have room for now. We'll talk about this more later.

National Retail Convention in Chicago in October

The annual convention of Dealers Association will be 18 and 19. Quite a number are expected to attend.

the National Retail Lumber held in Chicago, 1I1., October of California lumber dealers

HEADQUARTERS