The Top 40

Most dollar stores ain't.

Reminds me of the gun town south of Peshawar Pakistan. The occupants of every hovel spend all day doing something related to gun manufacture, and there are zillions of hovels. In one the occupants might have a stone age metallurgical setup and cast triggers. Another may file and polish the triggers. Another may cast rough barrels. Another bores barrels. Another rifles barrels etc. etc. It's all done by hand with the simplest equipment imaginable. Assembly and sales shops are strung up and down the main (and only) street. They will reproduce anything you bring in to be copied,up to and including ack ack. I went through it in '62 or '63 during a weather delay while flying resupply into the U2 operation at Peshawar. For the gun aficionadi, we were told by our guide that while the products were beautiful, you dare not use anything but the lowest powered black powder in any of them.

BillH, very interesting story.

In the past couple decades I've been fortunate enough to see a bit of the world. Going into the provinces of third world countries such as Philippines, Vietnam & South Africa, allows one to see how most of the world actually lives. I've purchased items at markets in such areas that were so inexpensive, I wondered how they could even afford to get them to market at the price asked.

It's all relative, Watson.
What's inexpensive to you, an outsider used to bigger numbers, is not so to them.

Similar to very early 20th century america when a dollar was really a dollar rather than the 3 cents it is today.

Would you work 8 hour days today for $10 a day?
No.
But in 1905 you'd have been making pretty decent coin, equal to about $97 a day today.