[meteorite-list] The problems with Amgala

From: Adam Hupe <raremeteorites_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Aug 6 18:43:25 2004
Message-ID: <001301c47c05$861acac0$6401a8c0_at_c1720188a>

Hi Stan and List,

Five years ago it used to be the price went up on falls as time passed, now
it is the exact opposite. As others have pointed out, this damaging trend
started with Michael Casper, the original "cowboy", with Bilanga. Now some
of his disciples are continuing this trend. There is no excuse for poor
business practices except for maybe lack of knowledge. Lack of knowledge
can be overcome if those guilty of it are willing to listen. Short-term
thinking, greed, dishonesty and a lack of resources have caused the majority
of the problems. If dealers release something before it classified because
they are worried about competition, what does this say about the market?

All the best,

------------------------------------
Adam Hupe
The Hupe Collection
Team LunarRock
IMCA 2185
raremeteorites_at_comcast.net


----- Original Message -----
From: "stan ." <laser_maniac_at_hotmail.com>
To: <raremeteorites_at_comcast.net>; <meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Friday, August 06, 2004 1:57 PM
Subject: RE: [meteorite-list] The problems with Amgala


>
> >The problem is that Amgala has not been completely classified yet so it
is
> >being sold as an unclassified meteorite. One of the reasons it is taking
so
> >long to classify is that many interesting features have been found in
> >Amgala
> >and the scientists want to describe them properly, something every fall
> >deserves.
>
>
> Adam, please forgive me for being overly cynical, but what does the
> classification results have to do with the signifigant dip seen in the
price
> of amgala? regardless of what it classifies as, your price for stones
> already in your possesion arent going to change. if it gets classified as
a
> common stone the price isnt going to go up. if it gets classified as
> something exotic the price would go up, but we ahve only seen a steady
> downward trend in the prices - you can find smallish well crusted amgalas
> selling on ebay pretty regularly at 5$ a gram - not as good a deal as i
just
> got for buying a large stone - but still about 50% of the price being
asked
> when it first came out.
>
> this trend isnt really seen in only amgala - look at lunar material -
years
> ago it was all priced at several thousand $ a gram - now you can get it
for
> a few hundred per gram. NWA 1929 was going for 50 to 100$ a gram and now
you
> can buy it for 20$ - or even as low as 5$ if you buy a big piece. olivine
> diogenite was going for what, 600$ a gram now you see people offering it
in
> the 100$ ballpark. kickass LL3's like begga were several tens of $ a gram
> and now they can be had for 2$ a gram. look at what happened to park
forrest
> prices.
>
> when stuff first comes out - be it a rare classification - or just an
> especially nice new fall it's price tends to be high - after a while more
> and more sources of the material open up, and competition drives the
prices
> down. it's not about dealers not having business sense - it's about free
> market dynamics pushing the prices where they need to be based upon the
laws
> of supply and demand.
>
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Received on Fri 06 Aug 2004 06:34:23 PM PDT