So the price being paid at scrap yards are aprox £100-£150 per ton and merchants are selling at £200-£250 per ton, about 100% price hike in last 4 years. Is to blame?
Plausible but that's 25p for a kilo of steel, wonder how many hooks can be made from a kilo of steel. Besides more popular patterns have increased by upto 40% and lesser ones by only 10%.
IMO increases in the cost of materials and production are an aside to the real reason: To many greedy buggers all wanting their cut.
This is in no way a dig at the poster but herein lies the reason specimen hooks are so over priced, a marketing man's dream.............
"Next one could be a new PB."
"Its the first point of contact between you and the fish."
Or my favourite:
"Its a confidence thing, you must have confidence in your tackle."
To be honest I'm pretty guilty being afraid of losing fish, so sticking with what works and equally important, what you know. As buying blind is a real gamble, not just quality wise but more the sizes.
Though I'm going to buy 100 size 10's of these, squash the barb and give them a bash at Boddington res:
http://www.tacklebargains.co.uk/acatalog/Climax---Maverick-Carp-Specimen-Hooks.html
Because one thing I'm sure of, I'll get more than 1 hook out of 5 being good, so costing the same as branded hooks. That's working on the premise that all branded hooks are good, which they ain't!