[meteorite-list] Emil Cohen's Market Trends of 1899 - Cohen's remarks & plausibility of conversion

From: Martin Altmann <Altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Apr 12 13:25:37 2005
Message-ID: <004601c53f85$6eb541a0$ed339a54_at_9y6y40j>

Cohen's remarks about the market:

In his article Cohen discloses some observations he made of the behaviour of
dealers and collectors, mainly to explain the deviation of some of
Wuelfing's values from the real market prices (all in all he concludes, that
Wuelfing's formula is useful), which diverge remarkably little from those,
which one can make today.

First of all he notes, that dealer prices depend on supply and demand and
are hardly a matter of the scientific value of the material,
as many collectors are only interested in increasing the number of locales
(still don't know the term in english, locations? - names) in their
collections, therefore willing to pay high prices for material, which seldom
appears on the market.

Further he observed, that often short after the discovery of a meteorite,
the prices are very high, but fall enormously as soon as substantial
quantities become mobile.
The opposite happens often too, if the main mass will have been locked away,
as a general rule, he says, if it's transeferred from private ownership to a
major public collection.

Incomprehensible for Cohen is, that the collectors are paying higher prices
for specimens, where some parts of fusion crust are left,
as in most cases those parts are to small to give the characteristics of the
fusion crust, as they would be displayed on larger contiguous surfaces
and furthermore he wonders, that the collectors don't pay attention to the
surface/weight ratio, which should be a price factor, as long as the
specimen wouldn't be thought for chemical and mineralogical analysis.

An exception, where no common price level exist, are according to Cohen, the
rare types (Angros dos Reis, Lodran, Jelica....),
as for them the dealers ask, what they think they can get for it.
(In his list you'll see almost no stone finds, only irons, and only a few
achondrites and carboneaceous among the observed falls).

On the other hand, he guesses, that for a dealer, who is sitting on hundreds
of kilos or even on tons of a single meteorite, it will be less harmful, to
give away specimens at a low price.

And as far as micromounts are concerned, he writes, that a dealer, who has
only 15 or 30g of a meteorite, comes only to consideration for collectors
interested in find locations, as from such pieces the characteristics of the
individual meteorite can't be seen.
But any collector would take small specimens, if no other are available -
the prices paid then are irrational.

His final sentence:
In fact in a meteorite trade the personal moment will be the decisive
factor, making a trade still to a not very pleasant occupation.



Plausibility of the conversion:

As told with exchanging the 1899 german Mark (Goldmark) into USD of our
days, I had to use as a vehicle the gold price of then and today. - with
more modern price lists, I guess, one simply could use the known inflation
rates.
The problem with my exchange is, that we don't know the effective purchase
power of gold in 1899.
Hencefore for testing, how realistic the result 1Mark 1899 = 4.61$ 2004 is,
here some prices and figures from the end of 19th century:

3 eggs costed in 1900 0.10Mark ~ 0.46 today's $
1 liter beer 0.24Mark ~ 1.10 $.
1 liter milk 0.20Mark ~ 0.92$
1kg sugar 0.65Mark ~ 3$
50kg potatos 1.75Mark ~ 8$
1kg porc meat 1.5Mark ~ 6,9$
1kg butter 1.86Mark ~ 8.5$
1kg coffee 4Mark ~ 18.5$

A miner in 1900 earned per day 3Mark ~ 13.8$
A dock worker (at this time already known to be paid below the minimum
living wage) got 61Mark per month ~ 280$
An assistant teacher 175Mark/month ~ 800$
A regular teacher 125
Bismarck had a basic salary of 4000Mark/month ~ 18.500$ (our actual
chancellor Schroeder get's 14.800Euro ~ 19.200$)

6 nights in a good hotel 20Marks ~ 92$
1 lunch in a restaurant (without drinks) 2Marks ~ 9.2$
The visit of the doctor coming from 4km away: ~14$
Issuing a prescription for a medicament: 0.5Mark ~2.3$
1 made-to-measure suit 65Mark ~ 300$

Wartburg-automobile 1899 (1.75HP) 3500Mark ~ 16.000$
Benz Dos-?-Dos automobile (5HP) 4500Mark ~ 20.700$
Benz Spider 1902 (15HP) 8500Mark ~ 39.200$

(a 3rd class one-way-ticket for the Titanic was in 1912 155Mark ~ 715$)

and so on....
Thus, I think, that the results of the conversion sound not too unrealistic
and the resulting meteorite prices give at least the right region.

Buckleboo!
Martin

PS: And now I will hear some discussions! Were the USA the Maghreb of the
19th century? Were the Canadians already strange then? Were Mocs and Pultusk
the Gao of 1899? Should we have more respect for Campo?........
Received on Tue 12 Apr 2005 01:31:15 PM PDT