I always feel semi-bad about this kind of thing, where it’s a neat idea, but let’s face it, once you’ve seen the idea it would be silly to buy one rather than make it yourself.
Although, I guess mostly this sort of thing gets bought as a gift, because people don’t have the wherewithal to do a nice presentation-quality version themselves. So they’re paying $10/3 as a kind of social ritual rather than in exchange for the product per se.
In this specific case, it seems to me like the designer has missed a trick, because rather than making the pencils (triggering people’s “dad-mode” purchasing logic), you could make a simple metal doodad that clamps onto an existing hexagonal pencil, then you hold it over a lighter to burn the pips into the wood. That might even be cheaper to manufacture in short runs, but people would think nothing of paying $10 for a tool that lets them make UNLIMITED DICE PENCILS!!!
