[meteorite-list] Tangible assets

From: dean bessey <deanbessey_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 13 Oct 2008 12:31:33 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <931841.62687.qm_at_web56103.mail.re3.yahoo.com>

I guess its all how you define tangible assets. If you are a bank with subprime mortgages selling them might be an issue right now.
If you have meteorites though there is a good market - even if you have to take a bit of a loss if you have to sell quickly.
As most of you know I sell a lot of other stuff (Stamps, coins, pearls, gemstones, rocks, jewlery fossils ect) so I see a lot of collectibles.
Any old time stamp dealer will tell you that recessions is the best type of economy for stamp dealers (Except maybe those trying to sell stamps as "investments") so recessions dont necessarily mean people stop feeding their hobbies. On the contrary, they may have more time or might want something that makes them happy.
Remember to that this "economic downturn" is caused predominately by people buying houses that they could not afford to pay for - partly because banks gave people low interest "teaser" rates for the first year and based their ability to pay on these lower interest rates. If you have been following the market (I used to be a stockbroker and have been missing the market the past few weeks) you will notice that interest rates have been massively slashed - probably down to or at least close to those earlier "teaser" interest rates. Eventually , when people pay more in interest than they do for their houses - people can afford to buy those houses again.
That along with a massive room for oil to fall further and I dont see a 1930s style depression like some pundents are almost gleefully predicting. A recession likely and a lot of wealthy stock investors taking a huge hit but this dont seem like the sky is falling. Anybody remember the 1980s and the savings and loan crises? Probably not as it was a non issue for the most part. However, during the time the so called S & L crises supposedly risked instigating a new depression and relegating the united states economy to third world status. Lots of people make money forcasting the end of the world (Makes better news than everybody being all happy). Remember James Dale Davidson and Sir William Rees-Mogg?
I dont see people stop buying meteorites. Especially with all of the space exploration going on creating interest in space I see no slowdown in the large numbers of new collectors currently getting into the meteorite market. I am pretty confident that one day in the (Not to) distant future people will be talking about how cheap meteorites were in the early 2000s and how good of an investemt they would have been at that time.
Of course that just my opinion. Lots of old time collectors have their head buried in the sand and believe that all this talk of drop in meteorite supply is just marketing by us meteorite dealers. Maybe they will eventually be proven right instead of me (Personally I cant see it happening though)
Cheers
DEAN
www.meteoriteshop.com
www.earthlytreasures.co.nz
 


      
Received on Mon 13 Oct 2008 03:31:33 PM PDT