As I was sorting through magazines and catalogs that came over the holidays I was reminded that the December Patrones had come just before Christmas but due to the general holiday mayhem, it had been put aside without a really good look.
So I pulled it out and was reminded how much I like the fashion-forward emphasis of this magazine. As usual there are quite a few designs I am interested in making.
Now this also poses a problem of sorts, because this was the last issue of my Patrones subscription and I need to decide if I am going to subscribe again or not. Last year we subscribed through clicking on an option on the website. The website has been redone and this option is no longer available. There is an email address for subscriptions, but then I started thinking, and I haven’t written them yet.
Last year the subscription price for all subscriptions outside the EU was 288.4 Euros, most of which goes to airmail postage. At the time I subscribed, in December, the exchange rate for US dollars was quite good and I paid roughly $322 for the subscription. It was expensive, but I could rationalize it.
The dollar started going down against the Euro. In April I checked the price following some inquiries and found that one could subscribe through Amazon.com for about $425.00 which seemed pretty pricey, but when I did the math with the exchange rate at that time I found the direct subscription to be $393.72 (see my post of April 28, 2007). That was pretty expensive and really not that far out of line considering that Amazon probably doesn’t get that many subscriptions for Patrones, they probably get them all delivered to their warehouse and then redistribute them to subscribers. I am sure the people at Amazon have figured out a pretty effective formula for balancing the profits on losses on individual items based on demand and desirability in such a way that the business remains profitable.
But back to the topic at hand. I figured the subscription price has to be at least what it was last year, and it may have gone up. I didn’t want to write to the publisher without at least having a vague idea of what I might be getting into. So figuring the price of 288.4 Euros at the current exchange rate (as of Wednesday) I came up with approximately $424.00 US dollars, which is more than $100 more than I paid a little over a year ago.
This gave me pause. The current Amazon price is $450, again maintaining about the same $25 markup for shipping/handling and processing. But although I love the Patrones magazine, and there are usually several patterns I want to make I need to think about whether there are enough patterns to warrant the price. If the subscription price was $424 for 12 issues it would come out to $36.00 an issue. I could probably get them on ebay for $24 an issue, perhaps a little less, figuring on using the express air-mail shipping. There are probably at least 3 patterns and often much more in each issue that appeal, so that works out to $12 a pattern. But there are two children’s issues which I don’t use.
On a price per pattern basis I don’t find it outrageous. I don’t usually manage to buy patterns on deep sale because the stores that offer those discounts are not located near my home.
But still, I simply cannot wrap my head around the idea of spending $425 for a magazine subscription, despite the fact that many professional journals cost more than than that per year. DH’s professional journals are more than that. When I was active in IEEE and ACM and subscribed to several journals I spent considerably more than the price of the Patrones magazine. But those were professional expenses. I am not sure I can rationalize a sewing magazine for a hobby the same way I can justify an academic journal which is used for professional education.
Well. I have to think about it. I might be looking for those issues on eBay and calling Around the World more frequently.
