Okay, it's only fair that I explain my thinking. I'm making a few assumptions: the work is to be done in a well equipped workshop at a quiet time by an apprentice who is signed off to operate all the relevant machines and is reasonably organised and motivated. There will be other productive activity going on, but not so much that people are tripping over each other or queuing for machines. All setting up and jig making is done beforehand, and the timber is already stacked up ready to go.
There are two ways this could work. Either the timber is indeed a by-product and is already planed to finished size and just needs cutting to length, or it's bought in specially. In the latter case that would be in form of rough sawn 3 1/2" boards bought at something like £100 per cubic foot. So we'll be using about 2 cubic feet, allow another for wastage (generous) and say £10 for labour (also generous). Price per unit excluding overheads is therefore roughly £4 / $6.50, or negligible if it's a matter of recycling offcuts.
How to do it from roughsawn boards:
Crosscut to convenient lengths: 3 minutes
Rip over width: 3 minutes
Plane using 4-sider at 5m/minute (slowest speed for best finish): 5 minutes
Crosscut to length with fine sawblade for minimal cleaning up: 8 minutes
Plough notebook groove. Saw mounted dado heads are illegal tooling here, so this is done with a wobble saw on the spindle moulder (a bit slower and requires a jig): 10 minutes
Bore holes. This requires an additional machine setting and a couple of jigs: 20 minutes
Clean up on horizontal belt sander with a fine belt ... bring us up to one hour.
That was quite tight, so maybe I'd only be pretending to be angry, which is standard practice.
What's not included: breaking sharp edges, branding and applying two coats of pre-catalysed lacquer, and all workshop overheads. So let's add another two hours of unskilled labour (£10), and the services of a skilled polisher at an outrageous £20, bringing us to £4.50, and add an arbitrary 10% to cover everything else and call it a round £5 all in. That's $8.18 per unit today; sell them for $55 and behold the profit margin.
Ivan said "some form of Doane paper notebook", so I don't know how much to allow for that, but if it's a Field Notes equivalent it'll presumably be something like $3 retail.
I wouldn't sell you one for a fiver, but nor would I ask well over £30.
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