[meteorite-list] How about a thread to discuss hunting ethics - west

From: Jason Utas <meteoritekid_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 2 Apr 2009 17:45:51 -0700
Message-ID: <93aaac890904021745o4e4372er27ecddd779b1ab2b_at_mail.gmail.com>

Steve,

> Remind us all what weights you found and how much the trip ?cost you and your
> dad, and the cost of the time your dad had to invest in lost ?Medical Doctor
> wages to find what you guys found? ?OK, leave out of the ?formula what your
> dad's time is worth, that is none of our business. ?Why ?don't you just figure
> your time invested as being worth $15/hour, for the total ?cost.

4.2g, 6.2g plus a 0.2g chip, 175.4g, and 2.4g.

- A total weight about on par with what I saw other people had found
in a week or so of hunting about a month ago, when there were more
stones being found. ?True, our weights aren't typical, but I can only
ascribe that to the fact that 1) I'm good at seeing smaller stones,
and that 2) we spent some time farther down the strewn-field, hoping
to come across places people hadn't looked.

Lost doctor's wages? ?Peter had that time scheduled as time off for my
spring break as of several months ago. ?Nothing was cancelled or
moved, his month had a standard number of hours.

But how much did you lose in wages? ?This is really relevant to my
point down below...kind of a side note here.

> Now, recalculate what your cost per gram would have been if you ?didn't find
> your big rock, as few hunters were as lucky as you were in finding ?such a big
> rock.

Other hunters generally found more meteorites in the 10-100g range,
though the average, from what I've read, was between ~20g and ~40g.
The average weight of the stones we found was 47g, not counting the
chip as a separate stone, which is only slightly above average, so
your point is kind of moot. ?Yes we found one big one, but, on
average, our finds were normal.

> Also, break down what it cost YOU for your finds per ?gram and break down
> what price per gram your dad paid for all of HIS ?grammage of rocks he found, if
> you would for us?

It was both of us, that was the haul. ?I used the total cost of the
trip for the pair of us and the total 'grammage' of our finds in my
calculation.

> By the way, how much are ?you willing to sell some of your specimens for?
> Would you sell them for ?double your cost, for a not so "clinically insane"
> price of say ?maybe $24/g? ? At that price, I might be a ?buyer.

We're collectors, not dealers - you know that.

But you're asking a question which raises some interesting issues.
While the initial story of "no one has stones they're willing to sell"
has passed, many hunters and collectors already went and found their
own stones. ?And while a collector who didn't go might be sitting
there saying 'crap, no one's selling,' I think it might also be
interesting to note that demand should be seriously down for a fall
that was accessible to most american collectors who were willing to
take the time to go and find their own stone.
Many of the people who would have bought from dealers have merely gone
and found their own, and the people who didn't...well, it's a new
fall, an L6, and it's really nothing special in terms of appearance or
science. ?Of course, it looks like a new fall, which usually retail
for, $10-30ish per gram, Park Forest raising the bar there. ?Even
historic falls usually go for $10-15/g.
In fact, I believe I can recall a nice 1/2 end cut of Leedey you
personally sold on ebay a few months back for a little less than $10
per gram.

At the same time, I find it odd that you, who walked away with over
2kg of material, think it prudent to charge $65/g, give or take.
That's $120,000. ?Not bad for a few week's worth of meteorite hunting,
especially if your costs were in the $100,000 range. ?Our trip wound
up costing us around $2,000, because we booked our flights the night
before. ?And since the flights took up the vast majority of that,
well, it makes things interesting. ?I've done some numbers. ?Had we
stayed a full week extra and found the same amount of meteorites (that
we had found in the previous *five* days), it would have cost us about
$500-600 more, and the price per gram of our finds would have come
down to about $7/g.
But you came away with 2kg. ?If you spent the full amount that we did
for the two of us, on yourself only, you paid $1/g. ?If you spent
$4,000, you spent $2/g. ?If you somehow managed to spend $10,000 on
your trip, well - you would only need to sell 150 grams of material at
your price of $65/g to cover your costs.
You've asked some pretty 'off' questions, so here are a few of my own
- how much of your stock have you sold, and how much money have you
made?

Regards,
Jason
Received on Thu 02 Apr 2009 08:45:51 PM PDT