AW: [meteorite-list] Annual InternationalMeteorite Trade Turnover

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Jul 12 11:14:26 2006
Message-ID: <00b801c6a5c5$d8666f50$4f41fea9_at_name86d88d87e2>

Hi Jeff, Dave, List

That's not only an interesting, but an essential question,
when we read in press about the value of meteorites and hear the statements
in the looting debates of recent times.
As most of the most important retailers and certainly also several of the
most mighty collectors are joining this very list,
hence that here are assembled the largest number of protagonists of that,
what some call the "market",
we should discuss it here, as contrary to those groups, who aggressively
blame the private sector to wreak (financial) havoc to the countries, where
most meteorites were removed and which operate with speculative and imho
often excessively exaggerate figures to back their accusations,
the list members here, may have more realistic insights and may it be be
that our estimations could be reported also to that upcoming conference as a
throw-in aiming to those fractions, which take also part in, who have
instructed the executive of their countries, that the gram of a meteorite is
traded in general at 10,000-20,000$ and deducted from that figures a wrong
volume of the meteorite market.

My guesses:
I regard the sales of the retail market as the last end of the chain, hence
all-in-all here the prices paid will be highest (but not necessarily
always).
Seen how few players are worldwide in the game, one could almost speak of a
oligarchy, hehe, and how few specialised collectors do exist (and how many
of them have a limited budget), I would estimate a much lower figure than
Jeff.

If one checks the visible sales in public,
one finds out that regarding weight and number of sales,
the lion's share of all sold stuff is captured by mass irons (and the 2 mass
pallasites) and ordinary chondrites from the deserts, classified or
unclassified.
Most predominant among the mass irons is Campo, usually selling somewhere
around 30-80$/kg. The Russians and downstream sellers were hard-working, but
Sikhote is going to an end, large specimens are almost not offered anymore,
Seymchan, Muonionalusta, Chinga, Brahin ect. there most pieces retailed
aren't in the kg-range; then we have one or two Canyon Diablo suppliers;
Gibeon is gone too since the export prohibition, Nantans and Pseudonantans
are the cheapest..

Desert OCs if weathered and unclassified (or often, hehe, why noone took
them??, classified from Oman) are sold in medium quantities somewhere
between 50 and 100$, classified ones 100-250$, and the tip of the iceberg,
those few W0-W1 around 400-1000$/kg.
Classified cuts higher, but they are small and the "flow-rate" is meager.

To come to such figures, as Jeff has, several hundreds of tons of that
material must be sold per year.

Well and here we have a problem. We can't generate 50 tons of Campo, 50 tons
of Sikhote, 50 tons of Canyon, 50 tons of Taza each year, because they do
not exist.

Now we dive into the dense mist of Morocco and Oman.
Recall Grossman's Grand Total of meteorites.
>From the recent 1200 years we have a total of 52 tons of ordinary
chondrites. These 52 tons include all falls, all finds outside of Sahara and
Oman, the huge amount of finds of 30 years hunting in Antarctica (which
never accessed the market), the early classified desert finds from
Pre-NWA-times, most Oman chondrites found, all classified NWAs.

Now - even if you take a fantastic number, that only every 10th NWA-find
will be classified and recorded, you never will even proximately approach
those annual quantities necessary for you dozens of Mega$.

Dean, if it's not to indiscrete (you don't have to confess here, that you
are multimillionaire, hehe) weren't you the guy, who exported by far the
most OCs from Mahgreb? Can you give us an idea, how many tons you got
during all the years?

Hence, what possibilities else could contribute to the estimation of the
annual retail-volume?

Yep. Historical finds and falls. They are more expensive.
Look around on the dealers pages, look around on ebay.
What do you see? Right. It is difficult to find Kilo-pieces offered for sale
from Nakhla, Tagish Lake, Ensisheim ect.
They don't grow on trees and traditionally are dealt in servings of a few
grams.
Remarkably large pieces of historical falls, and might it be only 1kg,
aren't sold each day and of course they are paid with lower gram prices
compared to little slices or micros.
I write "falls", because the historical finds, with sufficient large tkw and
where a sufficient amount is free outside of the institutional and private
collections, to be available in kg-pieces are paid with a few bucks.

Aaaand, rare types from the desert.
Here too, if I read the speculative figures of others, people seem to be
blind concerning the total amounts of practically and theoretically
available material, perhaps because of the number salad and the sheer
visibility of the load of minute samples at the dealers pages and on ebay.
Rare and rarest types are predominantly given to classifications by the
dealers, because only with rare types one can currently earn money and it's
of highest interest for the dealers, to get the stuff classified, cause else
they won't get a price for it.
Thus the most part of the achondrites is registered.
Selfpairing is in this respect a negligible factor, as mainly only amateurs
will do so.
Again a glance to the stats. Total of carbonaceous chondrites in history:
3 tons THREE - 2 of them registered as Allende.
Howardites, Eucrites, Diogenites: 1 single ton.

Now we have to remember, that most HEDs have meanwhile a retail price,
depending on size of 3-20$/g. The CV3s predominant among the CCs, 5-15$/g.
Where the heck shall we come then from those tiny amounts at such prices to
such huge annual cash volumes? Where should those types come from in such
large quantities? From the deserts not.

Do I hear, that there are other types, much better paid?
Right. We have Acapulcoites, they are paid with 40$/g.
We have Rumurutis, paid with 5-25$/g,
Folks, look in the bulletins. From each type - on Earth known a mere 30kg
(and obviously they are registered in a good frequence, as we had it on the
list, that the dozens of numbers could reduced to only 3-5 unpaired ones).

Well and then we have a rest of crown jewels. Ungrouped exotics, Mars, Moon.
There we have a few handful of material each, a certain amount already
distributed. And, a dealer would be very delighted, if you would pay so, but
actually you can't find on the market a single stone, with a price tag of
1M$, sorry.

And we don't have to forget, that with the size of a specimen the price per
gram rapidely is decreasing. If you see an ureilite slicelet selling at
30$/g, then you can't expect, that a piece of 2kgs would sell at 60.000$.
To sell that stuff in tiny slices to get that price out, you would need 2
decades, because there is absolutely no demand for meteorites at all.
For big chunks other prices are paid.
To illustrate, I was running around in January with an offer for a 8-9kg
piece of URE, must have been one of the top-3-largest ureilitic stones found
ever. I asked 2.5$/g - nobody was not only not buying it, in fact nobody was
even interested in.
Uuuh, when I see Vesta-Dave offering his larger HEDs on ebay, I often think,
poor Dave, the startprices are so low, sometimes so low, that you couldn't
get it that cheap nowadays in Morocco, when you buy it unclassified there,
and in most cases, the auctions stay without any bid.

So please, may we could revise our romantic imaginations about the big
meteorite biz?

Of course there happen sales with 5-digit numbers per piece, but they are
exceptions, as the meteorite dealers will confirm.
And with those sales is to say, that the gram prices differs remarkably from
those, which one has to pay for small pieces.

Super rare exotics are sold in larger portions too, also at lower prices of
course, but it happens even more sparsely, because there simply exists
almost no material.

Well, other rare cases are such astonishing results, when large pieces are
sold to non-meteoriticists, Bonham, Macovich ect, these are special sporadic
events.

Jeff, 100 millions... Well, how often do you think Steve Arnold can sell his
huge Brenham and at which price? Dunno, is it already sold? If not, remember
it was the best promoted meteorite ever, it's an American meteorite and in
USA are living the most collectors and also the US-museum have other systems
of funding, and are in better position then most other museums on Earth. And
if he will be able to sell it, what will he get paid for, what for a share
of the worldwide meteorite sales volume would this mean,
And - a very important question, wherefrom should he get the next
1400pounds-whacker, if possible, each year one?

Btw. To refer back to the museums - other than in earlier times, most
museums have no budget anymore at all to acquire meteorites.

Something, which comes to my mind, - I'm collecting meteorites since I was a
little boy - there are so few meteorite dealers! Am I to innocent, that I
never discovered the legions of dark eminences in the meteorite market, who
transfer all those dozens and hundreds of millions each year, I can't find
them in the web, nor on the forums, nor on the shows, nor in the telephone
book - where are they?

Hmm and then I look at our well known dealers. If the market has an annual
turn over of 25, 50, 100 Megadollars, ?hem, where has all the money gone?
Why I can't find among our known "highrollers" in the market the number of
multimillionaires, which must origin from the sums moved in the market? Why
Mike was advertising on the list a part of his private collection, when he
wanted to built a nice little house on the beach?
No collector is giving his collection pieces away without suffering hefty
pains.
Was Rob Haags silver suite made of true white gold?
Why Allan Lang is not feeding a group of jesters in his palace to bring back
again the smile in his face? Why are the Russians going to the shows by
dirty old japaneese jeeps and are not coming with their yachts like
Abramovich has one?
Why David Weir wasn't invited yet for free by one of those superrich dealers
to one of the shows, as gratification for the great service he is doing with
his studies-page to the meteorite community?
Why IMCA is doing their conferences by email and is not having fun at a
diner in the yacht club in Rio like the MetSoc had? And finally why Prince
Petrovitch can't afford a modern haircut??

Strrrrrange.

My guess thus:
I say: annual retail volume $2M, very optimistically perhaps $3M, (if there
are the dark force hidden players 4$M hehe)
Of course for the total trade turnover there are the multiplying factors of
the chain of buyers and sellers of the middlemen, but mainly concerning the
Morocco market, finders tend to market their finds by their own, and the
NWAs are only a segment of the market. And by far not all people involved in
meteorites have the opinion, that a meteorite, which is not sold after 1
month, is a bad meteorite. Meteorites are selling very slowly.
And for the question, which damage the looters are causing, only the last
retail price is decisive - as they could sell a stone only once.

An annotation to the NWA-market, of course now there is more material bought
then sold to the collectors, cause now, where the desert is going to an end,
retail-dealers forage and stash away interesting material, cause they know
exactly that in a few years, they will get multiple prices paid for it
compared to today.

Ooooooooother guesses?
Buckleboo!
Martin

Hey, perhaps, as ebay is also an important segment for meteorite dealing,
somebody using automatical analysing software may give us a hint, how high
the annual volume is there?






-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Jeff
Kuyken
Gesendet: Mittwoch, 12. Juli 2006 10:42
An: meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com; Mike Fowler
Betreff: [meteorite-list] Meteorite Insurance & Annual
InternationalMeteorite Trade Turnover

Interesting question Mike. I've always wondered what the entire annual
international turnover of the meteorite trade would be? Including all sales
and trades both private and commercial. Many pieces would even be sold 2 or
3 times in the one year. I bet it would add up very quickly... $25M...
$50M... $75M... $100M+???????? Anyone want to take a guess?

Cheers,

Jeff


----- Original Message -----
From: Mike Fowler
To: meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
Cc: Mike Fowler
Sent: Wednesday, July 12, 2006 10:32 AM
Subject: [meteorite-list] Insuring your (Million Dollar) meteorite
collection


> I know of a collector who was paying a annual premium that was 1%
> of the decared collection value.
> The collectors collection is valued $1,000,000 + . So the insuring
> costs can get pretty high.
> You can get some decent vaults for $10K
>
> Bob


I was wondering how many private collections are there in the million
dollar range? Any one care to make an educated guess?
Please don't mention any names.

Mike Fowler
Chicago
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Received on Wed 12 Jul 2006 11:14:16 AM PDT