[meteorite-list] A Curator Replies

From: Moni Waiblinger <moni2555_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 08:07:16 -0700
Message-ID: <COL106-W144A0C90DE0815674D651FCD260_at_phx.gbl>

Good Morning list,

I for one love to read Martin Altmann's post for all the knowledge and effort he puts into them!
I believe this one has such good information it should be put in one of the future Meteorite Magazine.
What do you think Mr. Lebofsky? :-)

With best regards,
Moni

> From: altmann at meteorite-martin.de
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Thu, 9 Jul 2009 16:02:31 +0200
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] A Curator Replies
>
> 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
>
>

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Received on Thu 09 Jul 2009 11:07:16 AM PDT