# Nailer

## Definition

A specialised metalworker whose sole occupation is the manufacture of nails. Smith uses the nailer as a quantitative illustration of the impossibility of extreme specialisation in a small market. A nailer producing a thousand nails per day (three hundred thousand per year) could not dispose of even a single day's output in the remote highlands of Scotland, making the trade unviable there despite the productivity gains of specialisation.

## Source Chapter

Book 1, Chapter 3: "That the Division of Labour is Limited by the Extent of the Market"

## Context

The nailer example follows the discussion of the country smith who must do all types of ironwork. It provides Smith's most precise numerical illustration of the mismatch between specialised output volume and local demand in a thin market.

## Economic Domain

Production

## Smith's Original Wording

> "It is impossible there should be such a trade as even that of a nailer in the remote and inland parts of the highlands of Scotland. Such a workman at the rate of a thousand nails a-day, and three hundred working days in the year, will make three hundred thousand nails in the year. But in such a situation it would be impossible to dispose of one thousand, that is, of one day's work in the year."

## Modern Interpretation

This is a clear early articulation of the relationship between production scale and market absorption capacity. It illustrates why high-volume, low-margin manufacturing concentrates in areas with access to large markets — a principle underlying modern industrial location theory.
