[meteorite-list] Total Number of Meteorites?

From: Darren Garrison <cynapse_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Dec 7 17:30:05 2005
Message-ID: <07oep15bl6aq5j91qa0jh5nonftm0jlkr5_at_4ax.com>

On Wed, 7 Dec 2005 23:05:51 +0100, "Martin Altmann" <altmann_at_meteorite-martin.de> wrote:

>Yah Darren,
>
>I guess we can't meet in our definitions about "value".
>If I'm thinking to poor people going to a pawnhouse, where they get a priori
>a lower price than the value of an item, as that sector lives from the
>differences of value and price and is giving a lower price to be sure that
>if the pleges will be auctioned, that they will get a better price,
>than I get very confused with "prices" and "values" :-)
>

Oh, I'm not trying to claim that the LOWEST possible price defines the market. But let's say that
you have a dozen near identical meteorites (of whatever type, just for illustration) that you want
to sell for 50 bucks each. If one guy offers you 5 bucks for one, but there are buyers for all 12
of them at $50 each, then obviously there are people who value them at $50 each and you'd have no
reason to give the cheap guy one for $5. But if you made the pieces known to all collectors (not
just whichever ones happened to be near you at the time) and made them available for a reasonable
amount of time, and during that time nobody offered you more than $5 for them, then I think that it
should be fair to say that the value of the pieces is only the $5 that everyone offers and not the
$50 you ask. When a meteorite is advertised on lists subscribed to by collectors and listed for
months or years on web sites and listed on Ebay over and over and even with all that exposure to
exactly the people likely to buy it nobody buys it, then that, to me, means that by definition the
price is higher than the value that even collectors place in it.
Received on Wed 07 Dec 2005 05:35:22 PM PST