I'm with ya Jared. There's great guys here, but so is there elsewhere. Why spend $10 or more for DIB pen blanks when you can get the entire burl for a $100? You can make pens around the ends and a bowl too, or slab it up for pens and desk sets or a multitude of other projects. I do not buy regular wood pen blanks ever, I will only buy the board or burl cap as a whole. I haven't delt with all that many blank sellers here, but one's I have want to charge me for an uncut board what they would sell it for as a pen blank, and that makes no sense to me. There's alot of wood here that you buy for $2-$5 for a pen blank, but can be purchased as a board for $2-$10 a bf, which is the equivalent of 24 pen blanks in jumbo size. Do it Jared..shop around. Ocooch Hardwoods is in Wisconsin and they do not have the biggest selection in the world, but they have way better than average prices for lumber! I buy from them when I'm over there. I bought a 24" wide by 4' long piece of bloodwood for $50 from them, and here at the Exotic lumber supplier it would have been at least $200. I can make a pen of just boring domestic lumbers that will sell faster and for more money than any burl I've seen..that's simple segmentation! Gee..now I'm going off in a different direction I think, lol. Anyhow, my opinion is that that website you showed is charging too much ...$6 for just one piece of wood pen blank...that nobody did anything to..there's no labor, just a rip with a saw.
I think I ordered some wood from these guys a few years back, actual wood, and it was fine, came to me right on time no problems..I have purchased a lot of lumber online from numerous sources and never had a problem yet..bound to be someone bad of course, but I haven't found them yet.
