Sounds expensive to me.
But then again...I live in New York and I'm biased. You can get a lot of low-priced (still good quality) stuff here if you know where to look.
I've seen small packs of a couple of dollars. A jar of 300-400 nuts can run 20 clams....a pack of 100 about 10 bucks.
The caps are color-coded, by the way.
The only translucent caps I've seen here are crimp-on caps used for motorized appliances(vibration concerns) and other similar electronic things where they don't want you to easily fix things. Also crimping is faster and more uniform quality control than screwing wirenuts.
You should see some of the mistakes I see when I'm repairing broken pencil sharpeners at work. One company (Hunt Boston) uses wirenuts in their sharpeners and sometimes they're not tightened properly or there are loose strands leaking out from underneath the cap!!!
Maybe that's why these things didn't work for him...he didn't crimp them. Look for a steel spring inside the cap. If it's a smooth barrel, then it's a crimp-on device.
[This message has been edited by SvenNYC (edited 04-16-2003).]
