[meteorite-list] Emil Cohen's Market trends of 1899

From: bernd.pauli_at_paulinet.de <bernd.pauli_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Apr 13 16:34:12 2005
Message-ID: <DIIE.00000033000036E8_at_paulinet.de>

Thank you Buckleboo Martin for taking upon you this huge,
time-consuming but rewarding task of comparing prices
and availability of meteorites then and now.

Alex wrote:

> My fellow collector friends on this list, who already were around
> as collectors in those days ... surely know what I am talking about

Yes, I can very well relate to those days. The arrival of a new sales
list from David New was eagerly awaited and opening the mail was like
opening an Xmas present. David's letters usually started with a report
on the weather conditions in Anacortes, Washington :-)

- April 11, 1988 clear and cool
- August 12, 1988 cloudy and hopes of some rain
- December 20, 1988 windy and cold

Some of my correspondence even goes back to 1983. On October 26,
1983, I received a letter from Robert O. Rose from Odessa, Texas.

He was offering uncut and unetched Odessas (one hundred pounds or
more at $38 per pound -- under 100 pounds $40 per pound. One US
dollar was DM 2.65 (about EURO 1.32 or $1.70 in October 1983).

Again, a direct comparison with nowaday's prices is impossible because
wages were lower, a new car cost far less than today, and oil and gas
prices in Germaqny had not yet broken the sound barrier (but were already
much higher than in the United States).

> an almost revolutionary boost with the dramatically increasing
> possibilities of private access to the internet for a wide public
> in the past decade.

.. and the "Hot Desert" bonanza. I am so happy that I jumped on the NWA
and Dhofar, etc. "bandwagon" as this bonanza will ebb sooner or later. One
example: There are presently 45 eucrites in my collection (this includes
thin sections and double specimens). Only 10 out of these 45 are not from
the Hot Desert regions, and if you saw my Millbillillie or my Camel Donga
next to my NWA 3147, you would be hard pressed to tell which is which!

Back to Buckleboo Martin's market trends. Lodran would have cost 104.19$
per gram. I paid $2500 per gram for Bruno and Carine's NWA 2235 lodranite.
A horrendous amount of money you might think. But we should keep in mind
that as a teacher (which I am in case you did not know), I would have earned
a fraction of what I do earn now in 2005.

Best wishes and
Thank you, Martin,

Bernd
Received on Wed 13 Apr 2005 04:34:10 PM PDT