I'm with Yazoo on it being worth it if its a nice stave. There is a lot of work and effort that goes into getting it and even more in processing them correctly so they will be good when they are ready to work. If a guy does'nt have the time, ability or desire and wants a nice stave then its worth it. I could'nt and would'nt buy one because I can and do do it myself. a couple months ago I was looking at my cured stash and I was down to just 5 staves so being out of work a couple months and in need of some extra money and not wanting to find myself in this situation again, I decided to start cutting and if I could selling some good osage staves. I recently harvested, split, debarked and drawknifed about 75 staves. The bulk of them were excellent, but I spent a full week scouting creek bottoms and getting permission to cut them. Then another week cutting and processing em. I must have passed on a thousand trees until I cut one. I'm real picky when it comes to osage cuz I know that in any batch your going to get some that are way less than perfect so I want to stack the deck as much as I can. The result is I have been able to sell several of what I call primos for 75 plus shipping and the bulk of the really nice ones are in the 50-65 plus shipping range. I have sold several "perfect" staves if there is such a thing. I have selfishly picked out 5 that were not offered for sale and they will get worked when they are ready. I also sent the best one to a friend on the west coast so he could share in the bounty. My whole point is its supply and demand and you do what you can with what you have. If you can't afford it you do it yourself, if you can afford it and don't have it around and want it, you trade some of those green backs for some gold backs...lol. Kinda simple logic.
Yazoo, its nice to know I'm not the only guy out there debarking his butt off. We had a blizzard roll through Kansas a week or so back and I was out there getting her done anyway. I get cabin fever real easy and figured I was blocked by the wind so what the heck...lol
Just in case you thought I was kidding. Here is a picture of the staves. Danny