AW: [meteorite-list] Murchison Price Difference

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Oct 5 09:55:44 2006
Message-ID: <006801c6e885$e324ec20$4f41fea9_at_name86d88d87e2>

Hi Doug,

"Then, Americans will discover German eBay and dump their meteorites"
Not a good perspective, Germans tend to be notoriously pessimistic, when the
famous German "angst" seizes them, they will store each penny under the
mattress.
I guess they should rather list the stuff then in Chinese ebay.
(also as a revenge for the endless Nantan fakes today).

Nice that you will send me tulip bulbs, will give me the opportunity to
explain the difference between tulips and meteorites.
The tulipomania in 17th century was quite the most exalted episode in the
history of collecting. Tulip bulbs were paid with the same weight in gold
and were objects of speculation; options for tulips were dealt.
The summit of this race was in 1637, when for 3 bulbs of a rare kind of
tulips the price of 3 houses in Amsterdam was paid.
The Dutch government finally fixed the tulip prices by a law,
subsequently the prices collapsed and this event is known as the first stock
exchange crash in history.

So far the analogy with meteorites.
The crash in meteorite market we all observed,
but, Doug, tulips you can grow and multiply.
Meteorites you can't cultivate - and where in future shall such amounts of
meteorites grow again, when Sahara and Oman will be over?
Franconia? Gobi? Atacama?

Can't you see, that within the only last 5 years the number of meteorites
quite sudden exploded to a 50times larger quantity as the 200 years before?
Take a look in the previous Blue Book of 1986.
There we have aside the Antarctics only 3000 meteorites at all!
Where are we currently in numbering the NWAs from 2001 - I guess we are
scratching on the NWA 5000 figure, with the Dhofars, help me, 1500-2000 ??
SaU, SAH, DaG, and so on.
And I guess quite a pile waits to be classified.

Man Doug! That is an unique meteoritical peak in history.
The number of collectors perhaps tripled, the number of meteorites available
increased 50fold. The prices went u n d e r g r o u n d !!!
The desert rush had ist culmination 2-3 years ago, since then the supply
drastically shortened - if you don't believe the sound of the prayer wheels
of the dealers and Morocco pilgrims, listen at least to the reports from the
big mineral shows, told by collectors.

On the other hands, itineri-itinera check the overall quantities of
meteorites in the Bulletin database, there simply never were, are, will be
ominous hundreds of tons of meteorites from Sahara, because they simply
never existed!
If the supply runs out, the collectors will have gnawed off the largest part
of the backlock, and there you can have as much as economical recessions in
US as you want, with this price level today, there is no other way, that the
prices will raise, if not an asteroid collision will wipe out all mammals
from our planet.

Hiiiistory, can please someone write an article about meteorite collecting
from the 20ies to the 60ies, after the big national races in 19th century
and a little bit later too, the establishing of the large collections of the
worlds, I feel always such a large gap in the history of meteorite
collecting until in the 60ies, 70ies one can read again more about
meteorites.
>From the time inbetween I have no ideas.
Only sporadical episodes, that poor Nininger was forced to tinker funny
stars from Canyon spherules in his museum for not having to starve.

Thanks
Martin


  

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: MexicoDoug [mailto:MexicoDoug_at_aim.com]
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 5. Oktober 2006 14:53
An: Martin Altmann; meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Murchison Price Difference

Hi Martin, nice positive outlook!

But, let's test these assumptions, just to temper it a little with an
alternate economic scenario (Hi Doug of 2026, pleased to meet you and 2006
sends you a warm greeting not to forget! Can you believe that Art's
archive's are still available on the Meteorites Disk #23 for $250 each on
neXtBay on the exoNet?)

There are market swings.

The USA enthusiasts are buoying the price of a deluge of meteorites to nice
levels today given the flooded market. Just ask the German collectors.

The USA suffers booms and busts throughout its economic history. A vote on
perpetually increasing meteorite pricing is a vote of confidence in the US
economy being the driver of the world, without any dips in the road to
eternity. That's a nice thought. Forever consuming 35% of the world's
electricity, drowning in petroleum etc.

At some point there will be a bust. Maybe when the US Congress realizes
that it's debt to equity ratio is worse than a third world country, or maybe
when an entire burgeoning generation of aging Americans asks, where is my
medical care? Where is my Social Security, and then some responsible fiscal
planning starts.

Then, Americans will discover German eBay and dump their meteorites there to
buy their medications in legions of "can you help a brother" sales.

And suddenly charitable Germans will come to the rescue. Hmmm. 1000
collectors who would rather have an old piece of space rubble than a shining
ingot of gold. That fall, ... hmmm ... two tons? Let's see. Each
collector can have a couple of kilos. How much is a gram worth? Let German
eBay figure it out. Unsatisfied, they will try to negotiate with the
nouveau rich of a unified China. have you ever negotiated with them?
They're a lot tougher than Germans...

Oh yes, the "locked up in museums" defense. Maybe the Ensisheim Stone won't
crack its shackles. Which other ones are so locked up...there must be a few
less speculative investments no doubt, like that. But no
guarantees...that's why its called business...

Right now you can buy a gram of Eucrite for the price of a Big Mac
hamburger. We can revisit that ratio when the US starts paying back $400
billion for Iraq and faces high oil prices despite best intentions. Then we
can see is a gram of Lunar meteorites can fill my gas tank. (or maybe 10
grams a Russian's tank). Maybe Martians will be $10,000 per gram:) As long
as gas isn't $200 per liter....

Then I'll send you some Dutch tulip bulbs to start a garden. Have a cup of
Earl Grey and reminisce about when a good marketer could painfully break
even buying and selling meteorites.

Meteorites are not rarer than antiques. They are not rarer than anything
that can be described as unique. There are a lot of unique things out
there.

They are rocks with a great story. And we do just love them. Money and
love don't always mix well, though. Sometimes when it rains it pours and
when it is dry, it's parched as a bone. Speculating about speculating is
quite a spectacle, economists are never wrong! The problem is when they
really start believing what they say...and convince everyone else that
forward looking statements in 10-K's are sure things ... and that 8-K's
don't happen...
Best wishes,
Doug
Above is fictitious scenario. No claims are made nor is it the intention to
create expectations of "truth". The future is unpredictable. Scenario
planning is simply a useful tool to understand and manage risks.


----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Altmann" <altmann_at_meteorite-martin.de>
To: "'David Weir'" <dgweir_at_earthlink.net>;
<meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Thursday, October 05, 2006 6:44 AM
Subject: AW: [meteorite-list] Murchison Price Difference


Each meteorite has its time.

Nowadays the usual price for Murchison is 60-100$/g.
7-5 years ago it was at 50-100$/g.
A German collector told me, that shortly after the fall, he sent a letter to
Murchison enquiring about the circumstances of this new fall.
A while later a parcel came back, with nice wording and because in Murchison
they were so delighted, that somebody from such a far country paid attention
to that fall, they added a 50g stone for free as a little thank you.

It is very simple. Meteorites are the rarest good on Earth. If from a
locales the lion share is once distributed, the prices are getting higher.
The pattern with new falls nowadays is always the same. First there is a
hype, many fear to miss out, the first one or two offerers make the price.
Depending on the quantity available and the number of additional offerors
getting access to the material, the price will fall.
After a while, when most of the material is gone, the prices will raise
again, not so seldom transcending the initial prices.

To expect a meteorite offeror to give away his goodies at the all-time
lowest price, is silly. In acquiring material, he has to bear also often the
same price fluctuations as the collector too and anyway they are working
with lower profit than your next Mom&Pop grocery shop around the corner.
To expect a dealer to sell an Allende at 30cents/g, a Zagami at 50$/g or a
Gibeon at 30$/kg, because in some golden days they were sold like this or to
snigger at collectors, who are willing to purchase at higher prices today is
so meaningful as to pay at present 30$/g for Campo because Ward and Cohen
did so 100 years ago or to give 8$/g and 12$/g for Sikhote and Brahin as it
was paid a dozen years ago or to spent 600$/g for a desert acapulcoite.

The supply of meteoritical material is extremely limited, a fact of which
many collectors, especially the newer ones aren't aware and in future only a
very small fraction of that amount of material hitting the "market" in our
fat years will be available.
The comparably easy availability and the extreme low prices are solely
caused by the evanescently small number of specialized collectors, the
release of the new desert finds within a few years only and finally by the
dedication of the professional and non-professional meteorite offerors.

The transfiguration and praise of the good ol' Golden days I can't share.
Certainly in the 70ies, 80ies and partially still in the 90ies locales today
highly paid were cheap (but by far not all), but there were at the best not
more than perhaps 200 different locales permanently available, we had a
handful of offerors, the communication was slow and the possibility for a
collector to compare prices was very limited.
Now, those very days, the collector can choose from 10,000 meteorites,
among them the absolutely rarest types at ridiculous low prices, which one
in former times simply couldn't find or where one had to go in debt to
afford a specimen larger than a fingernail.
Internet lead to a much higher transparency, the number of offerors and
collectors hasn't increased to such an extend, that the meteorite scene
wouldn't be cosy and familial anymore (or for some: so exclusively), on
contrary through the possibility of immediate communication via internet,
the members in the Petri dish got much more closer than ever.
(O.k. disadvantage is, that you have to abide such insupportable prattlers
like me).
Maybe from the psychology of collecting the veterans could have the
sensation, that the present times are poorer as it takes much less efforts
to get a rare stone into one's collection, so that there isn't such a thrill
left.
But does this change the properties of the material, have the stones
themselves changed??
Does a remarkably lower price derogate the properties of and the fascination
about a meteorite?

O tempora, o mores - I bet in 20 or already in 10 years lugubriously we will
think back to the early years of the new millennium, where one could buy a
Moon at thousand bucks, a howardite at 5$ and where we had the full palette
of types. Legends will be built about that Canadian selling chondrites by
the tons at prices of fancy cakes, about the keen Russian hunters blowing
out lunaites - one slice each to fill the tanks of their jeeps with diesel -

about a funny guy always jumping in the plane, when he heard about a new
fall, spending 90% of his income for travels, about collectors bitterly
complaining, that the sellers betrayed them in asking 3$ to much shipment
costs for their 20g ureilite slices, about buyers rejecting offers for Moons
at 500$, cause it would be to risky, about two strange guys bringing out
each week small polished sliced of the most whack exotics throwing them away
in hundred auctions per week, about flame wars between dealers, whether 5$
more or less per gram for an eucrite would be a bottomless daylight robbery,
about some French carving cheesy figurines from meteorites, about desert
hunters not picking up chondrites, cause they weren't worth a tinker's cuss
and finally
about 3 boyz from Germany, who augured this development years ago without
being prophets.

And the archives of this list will be like a far and very strange land of
wonders and fairy tales.

Enjoy these days in meteorite-paradise before it will be lost!
Martin


-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von David
Weir
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 5. Oktober 2006 11:52
An: dmerchan_at_rochester.rr.com
Cc: Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Murchison Price Difference

Don,

Perhaps some people remember that Murchison typically sold for $30-40/g
a dozen years ago and refuse to see the justification for such high
pricing today, while others newer to the scene are content to buy high.

David
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Received on Thu 05 Oct 2006 09:55:15 AM PDT