Tag: limited edition

In a world where you can “buy one in every color” and stores stock hundreds of identical items, we’ve been forced to make a different choice. We intentionally make only “one of a kind” items, and we’re going to tell you exactly why.

First, there’s the simple reality of our materials. When Rex finds a beautiful piece of Australian red gum burl, there’s only so much of it. That burl grew on one tree, in one place, with grain patterns that will never be repeated. When it’s gone, it’s gone. We could try to approximate the look with different wood, but it wouldn’t be the same piece, so why pretend it is?

Dawn faces the same thing with her resin work. When she develops a color combination using P-Town Subbie micas — maybe a deep blue swirl with metallic highlights — the exact ratio of pigments, the way they flow together, the ambient temperature of the workshop that day, all contribute to the final result. She could make something similar, but never identical.

But there’s a deeper reason we keep things small, and it’s about you, the person who chooses our work. When you pick up that Maple & Walnut French Rolling Pin, you’re not getting “item #4,327 off the production line.” You’re getting one of maybe three or four rolling pins Rex made from that particular combination of woods and it’s the only one with that wood in that combination he did. Your cutting board isn’t the same as hundreds of others — it’s one of the few that exist, period.

We’ve had people ask us, “Could you make fifty of these for our corporate gifts?” The answer is always no, not because we don’t want the business, but because we can’t make fifty identical anythings. Even if we used the same wood species and followed the same general design, each piece would be unique. The wood grain would be different, Rex’s hand movement on the lathe would vary slightly, Dawn’s resin pour would create different patterns.

There’s something powerful about owning something genuinely rare. Not artificially scarce because a marketing team decided to limit production, but naturally limited because the artist made what the materials allowed and then moved on to the next inspiration.

This approach means sometimes people miss out. We’ve had customers email us months later asking if we have “that blue and purple bowl from the Tucson Celtic Festival,” and we have to tell them it found its home with someone else. It’s bittersweet, but it’s also what makes finding the right piece feel like destiny rather than just shopping.

When you own one of our pieces, you know that even if someone else has something similar from us, they don’t have yours. Your Jupiter Pen has wood grain that exists nowhere else. Your cutting board has a story that’s entirely its own.

In an age of mass production and infinite availability, there’s something beautifully rebellious about saying, “This is it. This is all there is. Choose now or it’s gone forever.” It makes each piece more precious, each decision more meaningful, each ownership more special.