TomD
I used to make clubs for a bunch of folks, but at the time there were some who would not buy from me because they preferred to buy brands, sometimes I would sell them Pearless/Palmer. This was a brand that Arnold Palmer endorsed, and perhaps because Palmer was a lifelong club maker, he sold his heads to home builders also. That was a peek behind the curtain because he sold the heads for 6.95 each. Sets sold in retails stores (8 clubs) were 695 and 995 with carbon shafts. Best quality shafts at the time were 9 dollars (better than what the clubs came with), and grips were say 2 dollars and up. That was before china got into the game. so basically you could make a championship set at around 15-20 dollars a piece.

At the time the stainless heads were cheap like that but sold for more in the stores, while the forged blades sold for about 25 dollars a head , but would only pull in about 450 a set.

I can remember thinking how crazy some of the component drivers were. Huge heads in carbon fiber, weight ports, all this kluge junk. At the time, mid 90s, the brand stuff was at least fairly elegant. Funny thing, they adopted all the junky stuff from component makers about 20 years later. They are pretty desperate to come out with new stuff every year.