price of brass vs steel? cast? pipe fittings = weird

(parts have not changed for 100 years!). .

Actually "they have" LOL. Now that we have all the offshore manufacturers, it is sometimes difficult to get various brass fittings---in U.S. / SAE types--that have U.S. wrench hex flats on them. And some of them are NEITHER U.S. or metric. They are just "off"