[meteorite-list] A Curator Replies

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 16:02:31 +0200
Message-ID: <002e01ca009d$f02a4d10$177f2a59_at_name86d88d87e2>

Peter,

please allow me, that I dare to disagree, at one point only.
(haven't recovered yet).

>At their deaths,
>universities and museum were often the beneficiaries of their wills and
>many private collections came into public hands this way.
> There was no real market
>place for geological specimens in the sense we know it today, so prices
>were lower - comparatively.

I come to a somewhat different result at least on the field of meteorites.

Meteorites, not so surprising, were and are rare.
Most of the largest institutional meteorite collections of the world,
Acquired most of their meteorites from private persons.
New falls anyway, cause in most cases no officer of the crown war at hand,
when a meteorite decided to fall... no, more seriously, the collections grew
and some started at all by the means of donations of private collections,
but also more by the purchase of collections from private collectors and,
not so surprisingly, by the purchase from museums/geological/ meteorite
dealers! And they were regularly buying from meteorite dealers ever then.
That some collections nowadays don't or can't buy meteorites anymore,
is rather a very recent phenomenon.

Only a few examples. Chicago Field - they started with meteorites,
when they bought the complete display of Henry Augustus Ward from the
Columbian Exhibition in 1893.
Henry Ward was a commercial dealer of museum display items
and he was a meteorite dealer, the biggest of his times in USA.

After his death, in 1912 there was a bidding race between the AMNH in New
York, the Smithonian and Chicago Field to purchase Ward's private
collection.
And Chicago won and paid 1.8 million of USD (inflation adjusted) to the
heirs.

Let's stay in Chicago - the Adler Planetarium has a fine meteorite
collection. Max Adler naturally hadn't found them by his own,
he naturally purchased them and he purchased them from a dealer,
Anton Mensing.

How London in your country started?
In 1810 they purchased the Greville-collection for more than 1 million USD.
Maskelyne afterwards extended the meteorite collection excessively with more
than 200 locales - most of them he purchased from August Krantz.
August Krantz was nothing else than a commercial dealer, running a
geological warehouse (the firm still exists). All important museums were
buying from Krantz. What Koser is today for Campo, Krantz was at his times
for Pultusk.
And these were also the times, of the sometimes almost ruinous races between
the top collections of the world, where they spend really large sums to
purchase meteorites.
Fletcher - you know it buy your own, the funny anecdote how he achieved to
buy the Crumlin fall, in bribing the niece of the private owner in paying
her an organon, hoping she would persuade her uncle to sell to him.
Of course Fletcher was buying too.
Hey - who later was also in the UNESCO working group for meteorites,
where, if you read the first report, it was for them in that group a matter
of course, that there exist meteorite dealers to buy from -
Hey bought a part of the collection from a certain meteorite dealer, named
Nininger. The sources differ, some say it was half, others a third, others a
fifth of the collection (I guess it's only differently counted, by weight,
by number of specimens, by number of locales).
He paid more than 1 million USD.

I'm to lazy to look, what did the wive of Peary got from the AMNH for Cape
York? Ah let me search though...
I read 40,000$ in 1904 - inflation calculator says: is 912022.77$ in 2007

Hey dealers on the list here, hands up, when did you have your last 900,000$
sale?

Enough examples - let's recommend rather a good read, Peter

"The history of meteoritics and key meteorite collections"
By Gerald Joseph Home McCall, A. J. Bowden, Richard John Howarth

There the members could find many examples more.


In my eyes hence it's an illusion, that meteorites were in former times
mainly donated to the top collections, that there was no market and that
they were cheaper than today.

The price lists of Krantz, of Ward, of the Foote Company, of Nininger, Huss,
Zeitschel they still do exist. So we can prove that meteorites are today
much much much much much more cheaper than ever - and that solely due to the
increased activities of the private meteorite hunters and dealers.

In fact the only real historical bargain I can remember, was when NIPR in
Tokyo, purchased the collection of meteorite dealer Walter Zeitschel (the
largest private meteorite collection of these times).
The price was obscenely low.
Greetings to Walter, who is currently in hospital again.

Peter, Mark! - do you remember the trade formula Wuelfing developed for the
curators helping to estimate the right trade ratios of 2 locales, when they
swap?

Emil Cohen (the one from the cohenite) tested then whether this formula is
reflected in the actual - please forgive me, I don't know how to say it else
- how they are reflected in the market prices of his days.

For that purpose he published a compilation of all market prices in 1899,
which he had collected in that decade.

Please note also, that as these times there were only 700 meteorites known,
from these 700 meteorites Cohen lists more than 300 with their prices!
Which were avalaible for sale.

Only to compare, when I started in the early 1980ies with collecting, from
the 3000 locales less than 10% were available for sale.
So I fear, there was something like a kind of market...

Cohen's compilation - that were the prices your colleagues of these times,
the curators, had to pay and were paying.

I once made the work to turn the meteorites names of these lists into the
modern names in use and to convert the prices into today's USD-prices.
That was difficult, cause they were given in Goldmark.
That converted and inflation adjusted price compilation, Michael Blood saved
online under the link, I give below. (just search on this page for "Cohen"
it's in the middle somewhere).

IMPORTANT - IMPORTANT - IMPORTANT - IMPORTANT !!!

If you want to use it now.

My conversion factor there is WRONG !!!

Today I have more exact information. (source Statistisches Bundesamt)
The purchase power of the Goldmark suffered quite a devaluation in the very
years after Cohen had published his lists and my comparison values stem from
that later values...

So you have to MULTIPLY the GIVEN PRICE BY 5.4

To get the correct equivalents of today.


PRICE x 5.4

http://www.michaelbloodmeteorites.com/MMT1.html


I hope that is interesting...


Well, but more recently... when I started collecting, I had to pay up to
9$/g for a Sikhote.
Now we had several years, where you got the best quality at a standard price
of 0.3$/g.
My first Muonionalusta I had to pay with more than 20$/g, because there were
only 3 pieces known. Now the privateers dig out several tons
and if you as curator wants to have a sample in your collection, you have to
pay not more than 100$ per kilogram or you have to swap a 200times smaller
amount of your material in exchange.
Brahin - at my times not available and if, then expensive as Esquel.
Now you can have it for below 1$.
Brenham - I sincerely doubt, whether you could have bought it from a
Nininger in the 1950ies at 0.06$/g which would be the equivalent of today's
Brenham bulk price.
And please don't come with Allende, yes Allende was cheaper than today, but
it was an unique and sudden impact of a ton on the market.
In turn take the Pultusks found today in the field, they cost just 1-2$/g
more than Krantz asked right after the fall.
Kainsaz, Kainsaz had cost once 50-100$/g, when the new specimens were found,
the finders brought the prices down to 2 or 3$ a gram!
That you could buy a fresh and pristine fall at 1-3$/g like Juancheng, El
Hammami, Bassikonou, Chergach, Tamdaght, Bensour, Zag, Ben Guerir
Happened as far as I can see only twice in history.
Allende and Alfianello.

I made a Cohen-like price compilation of the years 2000 and 2001.
With the complete offers of more than 80 dealers and private offerers.
For the rare types you had to pay then 10-50 times more than today.

Peter, Mark - if you wanted to have an acapulcoite in your collection,
15-10 years ago you had the choice between a Monument Draw at an average
price of 900$ a gram (all inflation-adjusted) or an Acapulco at 1300$/g.

You saw me and Stefan selling in Ensisheim acapulcoites at 40$/g in small
slices.
Rumurutiites - you had to pay 250, 300 and up.
We're selling them now starting at 9$/g for slices, up to 25$/g if it's a
very pretty one and for the W0 and W0/1er rivalling Rumuruti as a fall,
there we asked 50$-60$, because there exist only 4 small stones on Earth.
Brachinites - have you noticed that we asked 50 Euro/g ?

That is all stuff rarer than any Moon or Martian!
Apropos lunaites - the 5 different lunaites we have, for the price we ask
for them altogether you hardly can run the McMurdo Station in Antarctica for
3 or 4 days,
but all teams from ANSMET, NIPR, Chinese Polar Research need on average more
than 6 years to find the same number and amount of lunaites.

Nuff. I don't know much about the artefacts, art, fossils, mineral market
- if the developments are there like you said, they are so,
but then you have to see, that the meteorite "market" obviously evolved
decoupled from that general evolution and in exactly the opposite direction.

The bulk from Sahara are unclassified weathered chondrites.
They are retailed to the collectors and to the curators, if they want,
at prices down to 25$/kg.
Can anybody name an example in history, where a meteorite was available at
such a price......

Peter, Mark - I'm writing that not to show what for a weisenheimer I am
and good heavens don't take it under no circumstances as an personal attack.

I'm only desperate - you know that dealer, hunter and collectors bashing you
can read everywhere in publications and in media,
I'm desperate cause so few are willing to take notice what however happened
and is happening in reality.


Because how shall we enter any meaningful discussion to find a compromise or
a solution, if we don't even know or ignore the fundamental facts?

Let me close with a thesis.
A thesis which is not keen. I say:

To acquire the complete output of new meteorite finds done by the private
side in a year and worldwide,
there are necessary not more than 10 million USD.

Off to bed now.
Martin


-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Peter
Davidson
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 9. Juli 2009 10:23
An: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] A Curator Replies

Mark, I would like to answer some of your allegations if I may and
perhaps open a debate about where collected material goes. There seems
to be a rather broad misconception about museums and their collections.

Let me just start by saying that collectors have made an inestimable
contribution to the furtherance of science. There is no disputing this.
As science developed from the late 17th Century, collectors and
explorers went out into the wide world to search for the unusual, exotic
and unseen. Of course this material went to universities and museums,
where else could it go? It was these fast developing institutions that
were at the cutting edge of scientific research up to and beyond the
Victorian Age. There were private collectors, but they were often former
academics and almost certainly university educated. At their deaths,
universities and museum were often the beneficiaries of their wills and
many private collections came into public hands this way. It also has to
be remembered that museum collections, including our own, were
originally set-up as teaching collections. There was no real market
place for geological specimens in the sense we know it today, so prices
were lower - comparatively. The clientele, such as it was, was also
largely middle- or upper-class and financially very well off.

However, the notion that there is a "flow" of newly found material into
museums is not entirely true. I do not work in an artefact-based
department. It would therefore be unfair of me to comment to any great
degree on their collecting policies. As I stated above, much of the
material in museum drawers are donated/bequeathed objects or collections
acquired by purchase. In any collection, there is a variable proportion
of material that can be described as "contextless" or "difficult". But
what may at the time be considered of lesser value may after subsequent
research prove to be of greater value. It is on that basis museums often
appear to hoard excess material. It is also often the case that once
material is registered, it is very difficult and, I would personally add
undesirable, to sell-off this material. If this material is contextless,
then it can surely have no value in the market place anyway. Would you
buy a shapeless lump of rock or pottery whose only provenance is "found
in museum drawer"?

On the scientific side, the "value" of an object can be viewed
differently. As a mineralogist, as well as the obvious aesthetic
qualities of some objects, there is also the scientific value. Some of
the rarest and most "precious" of our objects are (to an aesthete)
uninspiring and dull. Yet to a mineralogist, they may be the finest
examples of a mineral species in the World. As for a never-ending flow
of objects disappearing into museum collections. Let me assure you that
if this is happening, then it is being done by elves at night when there
are no museum staff around.

As far as owning the objects. Well in that sense the museums doesn't own
the specimens. The people of Scotland own them, all five million of us,
and they are available for viewing either in galleries, online or by
appointment for free. You only have to ask.

Peter Davidson
Curator of Minerals
 
National Museums Collection Centre
National Museums Scotland
242 West Granton Road
Edinburgh
EH5 1JA
Phone: +44 131 247 4283
p.davidson at nms.ac.uk
www.nms.ac.uk
 
 

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Mark
Ford
Sent: 08 July 2009 16:01
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] A Curator Replies


Also we should never underestimate the contribution made to science by
collectors! This is particularly true of meteorites, if no-one collected
them, and created the resources needed for hunting them, our museum
draws would actually be much emptier I suspect - Yes the market price
would (arguably) be a little bit lower but how exactly does that help
find more meteorites??

Imho, one of the reasons the market prices keep going up (particularly
with historic artifacts) is newly found stuff simply flows in one
direction into museum collections and archives. further limiting the
market availability, this will only get worse if the supply of material
to collectors gets even further choked off, by stupid blanket laws -
for example if museums where allowed to trade and sell off some of the
artifacts that are not needed then the market value would drop to
sensible levels.

(Ironically, there are countless thousands of useless orphaned
contextless artifacts, that can serve no useful purpose sitting in
museum draws all over the world, some are probably worth a small fortune
on the open market - surely we should consider using some of this to
fund much more important work, before we target private collectors).

I believe we actually all have a personal responsibility to only keep
and collect what we actually need to collect, museums included, that way
everyone gets the chance to own these treasures without needing a
mortgage, After all there is only so much to go round.


Mark











-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Peter
Davidson
Sent: 08 July 2009 12:02
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Subject: [meteorite-list] A Curator Replies

This is my first posting on this list - please be gentle with me. I have
only been on the list a matter of a week or so and I seemed to have
walked into a veritable storm. I would like to share my views with you
as a curator. Please forgive this rather long mail.

 

Taking a posting from Martin Altmann dated 7th July as my starting
point, here goes.

 

I have never heard a law being described as "exotic". Do you mean
idiotic?

 

I can in no way speak on behalf of all curators, far less Australian
ones. I can only give you my own viewpoint but I do know many curators
from Australia, mostly mineralogists, and please believe me when I tell
you they are fine people and not the narrow-minded, nationalistic people
hinted at in a number of e-mails. I also noted that Martin Altmann
stated that everybody on the list was a "lousy layman" which is not only
patently untrue but just a little sexist. But I digress.

 

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Received on Thu 09 Jul 2009 10:02:31 AM PDT