The French official standing beside the drilling machine smiled and gestured to the middle-aged man in the crowd. "First, please allow me to correct one point: this machine is called a Multi-Function Combined Lathe.
"Second, forgive my presumption, but where are you from?"
The middle-aged man hurriedly replied, "Munich. I'm from Munich."
The French official immediately pointed with an elegant gesture toward a row of tables on the north side. "Bavaria has a patent agreement with our country, so you only need to register at the service desk over there and pay a deposit to secure a production slot for the new equipment. Oh, the patent for this machine belongs to the Royal Mechanical Equipment Company of Namur."
Overjoyed, the middle-aged man was about to turn away when his feet abruptly halted. "Um, may I ask how much this Multi-Function-whatever-it-was costs per unit?"
"That depends on the configuration you choose. Roughly twenty to forty thousand Francs."
Hearing that figure, the middle-aged man was instantly delighted. Tossing out a "Thank you very much," he rushed toward the service desk.
Yes, the price was far lower than he had expected. After all, the Steam Engine mounted on the back alone would cost six or seven thousand Francs. And from the demonstration just now, he could tell that this machine's processing precision was two orders of magnitude higher than that of existing equipment.
In other words, parts that came off the machine could be used directly, without needing craftsmen to polish them by hand again as before.
He estimated that his workshop could hire three fewer highly paid senior technicians because of this alone. On that item alone, it would save enough money to pay for the machine within three or four years.
Add in the machine's astonishing processing efficiency, and the workshop's