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I'm not sure how they would determine the demand from the community as a whole. A lot of split ortho's have 1.5u as thumb keys which would be great to have as a space key. GMK is an exception, but I am happy they usually make the cut in other profiles.
The way I understood it was that there are two ways of pricing. One is for a specific GB and will be pricy, but much less so if GMK has rights to use the molds afterwards in how they see fit. This would mean they also become available to the community for other GB's. The price will be less in that way.
It could be that this information is not entirely correct. I am hearing this from the vendor who is in contact with GMK. I made it clear I would be very happy for these molds to be available to the community. So all I can do now is wait again and ask for updates if it's taking a while.
Could there be a misunderstanding between molds and tooling? New molds(=Schriftsätze) shouldn't add much more to the quote, especially if you reach a high MOQ. But the 1.5 space bar would need a new tooling(=Werkzeug), like the 3u space bar, which should be more expensive. Molds can also be used for any row after they have been made AFAIK.
But to clarify I was told this; "Nur eine ausreichende Nachfrage, guter Absatz rechtfertigt neue Werkzeuge."(Only a sufficient demand, good sales warrant new toolings.), when I asked for further space bar options.
Any way I hope you are able to add them to the kit because 1.5u space bars would allow for symmetrical bottom rows on split space bar layouts and I'd really appreciate that as someone who uses wide mod on standard staggered layouts.