"Robert" wrote in message
...

Perhaps you could give us the date prices were finalized for the last
catalog so
I can check that. Because it certainly wasn't true the day I first
received it.


I have _zero_ knowledge of Lee Valley's actual operations.

I *do* have considerable experience with large catalog preparation,
publishing, and distribution. It is a _big_, *EXPENSIVE*, job.

You can safely assume that anything you see in the catalog was 'cast in stone'
at least 60 days before the _first_ mailings. That's the kind of time it
takes to do the printing and binding, addressing, and appropriate 'bundling'
for least-cost mail delivery.

On top of that, there is another 45 days, minimum, for the typesetting of the
changed pages, proofing, doing the color separations, etc. that are required
to have the material ready to 'go to press'.

If they're printing from a 'database', then 'applying' the 'decided upon'
currency conversion can be done for the entire catalog "shortly before" they
start the typesetting stage. If they use 'rounded' conversions -- so the
price comes out as 49.99, instead of 50.07, for example, somebody has to
review all the roundings, and possibly over-ride a round-up/round-down
decision. Pricing for every _new_ item (i.e. 'not previously published')
has to be manually reviewed, to ensure that there were no errors in the
database entry/extraction/conversion formulas for *that* item. This adds
a week or two to the time-line.

If there is any 'body copy' that makes indirect/imprecise reference to pricing,
then the pricing has to be set _before_ that body copy is written. This
shoves things back another couple of weeks, at least.

Thus, pricing ends up 'frozen' a good *FOUR*MONTHS* before the first catalogs
go in the mail.


Now, it is a _fact_ that the value of the Canadian Dollar, vs the American
Dollar was _falling_ from the first week in January, 2004, through the first
week of June, 2004. And the international futures markets show that the
_world_at_large_ expected (as late as Mid-May, 2004) that the Canadian Dollar
would remain in the US$0.71-0.75 range, *THROUGH* September of 2005. That's
right, the year TWO THOUSAND FIVE.

Starting in _mid-May, 2004_, the _further_out_ (i.e. Sept, 2005) projected
value of the CAN$ started to rise. It wasn't until the 1st week of June,
however, that the September, 2004 projected value started to rise.

It is an indisputable fact that the world-at-large did *NOT* see the run-up
in the value of the CAN$ coming. Early Spring 2004, expectations were that
the CAN$ was going to _loose_ another 1-2 cents by Summer/Fall 2005.