[meteorite-list] Meteorite sales falling with the stock market?

From: dean bessey <deanbessey_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:07:04 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <787106.46812.qm_at_web56103.mail.re3.yahoo.com>

I havent seen the usual september jump in ebay and internet sales this year but I have been busy with the shop and havent listed much stuff so I cant complain and sales have been good. There are plenty of new meteorite collectors driving the market and I dont see a slowdown in sales and everything is OK here.
I do see some longer term (So called serious) collectors still with their head in the sand believing that all this talk about the desert being hunted out and fewer meteorites being found is nothing more than marketing by dealers. This even though if you look on ebay prices are up and quality way down and there has been much much fewer meteorites at denver, tucson, munich and st marie for 3 years now. No moroccans go to these shows with huge tables of meteorites anymore and they are slowly going back to concentrating on fossil sales because they cant get enough meteorites to have much of a display. New better items are notable absent. 6 years ago new achondrites and Cs were almost a weekly occurance. Everything from the low grade junk to top of the line achondrites are in short supply nowadays.
I still think that prices cant go lower and that the smart buyers are buying for investment right now. The only exception is that I still think that lunars and martians and other expensive meteorites are overpriced and have room to fall. However, I have been saying that for 3 years now and the increased quantities necessary hasnt materialized and only a small trickle of the better achondrites are not keeping up with demand and if I have figured out how the moroccans operate there dont seem to be quantities stashed away in morocco. I wasnt offered much more after buying 300 grams of the shergotite two years ago for example. So maybe the lunars and martians have bottomed out in price also. I dont see floods anyway and if institutions pick up the buying pace there will be a massive shortage of these types of meteorites.
So I dont see a real drop off in sales recently and (For me anyway) finding stuff to buy is a more difficult job than finding customers to buy my meteorites.
Sincerely
DEAN
www.meteoriteshop.com






      
Received on Mon 13 Oct 2008 03:07:04 PM PDT