I don't understand this. Why is there no spacebar?
I understand these are dye-sub and very high quality but $120 for an incomplete set with 1.5 mods seems unreasonable. ~~I expect GMK for this price.~~ Edit: Seems that these rival GMK in quality on the PBT side.
The set is for a non-standard bottom rows but for $120 it needs to have a spacebar. You're buying this set for your oddly-spaced board so you can have a complete set that doesn't look like crap on your board. Seriously, who would want to participate in this drop? You could just buy a new keyboard and keyset for a little more, and now you have a board that you can put 99% of keysets on.
Edit: Not to mention this set is a measly 14% off, what a deal. With shipping and tax and customs fees if you live outside the US this will be more than MSRP.
Turns out that you can't purchase anywhere else than Massdrop, so how exactly are you saving money on an item based off of it's MSRP which isn't being used anywhere?
slibThere is no spacebar because BSP does not manufacture spacebars, which sounds crazy but it's just the way it is.
To complete sets many people will get 7x GMK spacebars in a matching colorway.
MaNiFeXThe actual price breakdown over Gateron I don't know personally but I would imagine it's partially due to a couple of things:
1. BSP bought the molds ect from Cherry(who knows how much)
2. They're not made in China(BSP Europe is in Denmark)
3. Higher quality plastic. BSP is smoother than Gateron, and less prone to shrinkage(stems especially).
KnivesMIt seems like you aren't saving much by buying from MD, about 5 dollars accounting for shipping and tax. Massdrop's QA isn't the best, so I think buying from Originativeco is a better deal.
MaNiFeXSo first I'll answer your explicit question of "Why is this more expensive than other PBT caps". It boils down to three different factors (KnivesM already mentioned the first two): 1) Place of manufacture, 2) quality, and 3) quantity. The first is easy to understand, it costs quite a bit more to manufacture in the EU than SE Asia. Quality is subjective, but people really love the texture and overall quality of BSP products. And finally is the real kicker: these were made in a relatively low quantity and it was split between 4 different colors (ignoring the blanks as they are much cheaper). So in the end I doubt more than 100 of each were even produced, and in all likelihood we're probably talking 50-ish for the less common red and green.
Now I think your implied question was "Why would anyone commission these at this price?" And that comes down to the fact that there's a segment of the keyboard enthusiast population that really loves vintage gear, and BSP PBT is about as vintage as you get. They use original Cherry Corp molds and legends, and certain circles that goes a long way.
It's definitely one of those things where it makes perfect sense to you, or it seems totally bananas.
slibSo, there's kinda a reason this stock is available on MD. Not to dive too deep into forum drama, but Originative had some issues in the past with prompt delivery of items. I've seen recent reports of this being quite a bit better, but many of the people who are the target of a drop like this would probably feel much better with MD as an intermediary.
This is at least the 3rd drop with Originative stock and there have been no issues, so there doesn't seem to be any issues when MD is the middleman.
slibBSP is the PBT ver of GMK. They own the original Cherry PBT machines, while GMK owns the original Cherry ABS machines. But yes the lack of spacebar, centre caps lock and price make it not worth (for me any way)
jbondesonMakes sense then. I didn't realize the profile were that different on the Gaterons and the GMK molds. I own GMK ABS, but haven't gotten my Gaterons, yet, so I can't compare the profile.
Cherry molds are nice, but I can't speak to the quality of plastic as I haven't touched/weighed them yet.
And to speak to the audience, yes, it's a small one, and makes sense that things cost more due to scale and the fact that the winkeyless market is much smaller than, say, a standard bottom row.
I understand these are dye-sub and very high quality but $120 for an incomplete set with 1.5 mods seems unreasonable. ~~I expect GMK for this price.~~ Edit: Seems that these rival GMK in quality on the PBT side.
The set is for a non-standard bottom rows but for $120 it needs to have a spacebar. You're buying this set for your oddly-spaced board so you can have a complete set that doesn't look like crap on your board. Seriously, who would want to participate in this drop? You could just buy a new keyboard and keyset for a little more, and now you have a board that you can put 99% of keysets on.
Edit: Not to mention this set is a measly 14% off, what a deal. With shipping and tax and customs fees if you live outside the US this will be more than MSRP.
Turns out that you can't purchase anywhere else than Massdrop, so how exactly are you saving money on an item based off of it's MSRP which isn't being used anywhere?