[meteorite-list] A Survey for Collectors

From: Michael Gilmer <meteoritemike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 21 Feb 2011 22:06:41 -0500
Message-ID: <AANLkTinDAo7RX2rjwhteSn+WzqFcmRDJCjNa623Gdimv_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hi Jason,

Well said. I completely agree with the H5 from USA vs. H5 from NWA
valuation that you pointed out. Isn't it amazing how Anglo-centrism
worms it way into everything, including meteorites? I wonder if
collectors in Morocco pay more for Tamdakt than Ash Creek, because
it's worth more to them as a local meteorite? Or is that just an
American/European phenomenon?

One thing which is obvious to collectors of micromounts - the smaller
the specimen, the more per gram that it costs. Take a piece of "Old
Yeller" NWA, smash it with a hammer and sell each piece for $5.
You'll end up turning that specimen into a $100/g meteorite. Of
course, you'll have to make 100 sales to realize that money, but the
truth of it is there.

Best regards,

MikeG


n 2/21/11, Jason Utas <meteoritekid at gmail.com> wrote:
> Hello All,
> Someone came to me with a new meteorite recently and asked me for a
> description of how meteorite pricing is determined. An excerpt from
> my reply is below.
> ---
> Pricing revolves around a few general characteristics...
>
> 1) Chemical rarity. Meteorite types factor greatly into their value,
> and the rarer the type, generally the higher the value.
>
> 2) Rarity of the given fall/find. The most common type of meteorite
> is an L6 ordinary chondrite. An L6 from a place like Morocco or
> Algeria is worth 5 to 10 cents per gram - a meteorite dealer might try
> to sell them for more, but anyone could get them for that much.
> On the other hand, a chemically *identical* meteorite that fell in
> France ~two hundred years ago (a meteorite like L'Aigle) is apparently
> worth nearly $1000 per gram. (Or compare to a non-historic example
> like Villalbeto de la Pe?a at ~$100/g or so. If you don't want to
> compare to a fall, compare to Kermichel at $200+/g). A chemically
> identical meteorite from the US could be bought for anywhere from $1/g
> (e.g. a common meteorite like Gold Basin, an L4-6 from Arizona) to
> $10-20/g for a stone like Pasamonte (b), simply because it's a small
> L6 from the US.
>
> 3) Availability. The Hoba meteorite is the largest single meteorite
> ever found, at an estimated 60 metric tonnes. But very little has
> ever been removed/cut off of the 60 tonne mass (and it's now illegal
> to try to do cut more off of it), so very little is available. Hence
> it's worth quite a bit per gram ($300+), when you can find any for
> sale. Part of that has to do with the fact that it's the largest
> single meteorite in the world, so it is a bit of a 'must-have' for
> many collections, but still -- if it were readily available like, say,
> Cape York, an iron from Greenland of which many hundreds of kilograms
> are on the market, it would, as Cape York does, fetch between $5 and
> $10 per gram.
>
> 4) History. A meteorite that fell a hundred years ago like Holbrook
> (also a common L/LL6, and readily available to boot) is apparently
> worth $20/g or so. A new fall like Breja from May of this past year
> (LL6?) with a total recovered weight of a mere 12-15 kilograms is
> apparently worth $4-10/g on the market today, simply because it's a
> new fall from Algeria (and is thus valued less for some reason).
> Given a few decades, the prices will likely be equivalent.
>
> 5) Location of find/fall. The total recovered weight of the Park
> Forest meteorite, an L5 that fell in suburban Chicago in 2003 was at
> least 25 kilograms. At the time of the fall, stones retailed for
> ~$20-40 per gram. They currently still sell for the same amount.
> Compare to Bassikounou, an H5 fall in Morocco a few years ago with a
> similar total known weight that still retails for ~$3-5 per gram.
>
> 6) Specimen size. The regular collector base for meteorites is
> apparently only a few thousand people. The market for specimens
> decreases exponentially as specimen price goes up. While a hundred
> people might jump at a $50 rock if it's special in some way and
> reasonably priced, there are probably no more than twenty or thirty
> collectors who could foot more than a few thousand dollars for any
> given specimen, even if it were a 'great deal.' Hence buying in bulk
> can make a huge difference in this market; a dealer can buy a
> meteorite that weighs 20+kg for a reasonable price per kilogram (say
> $2-300 per kilogram), cut it up, and sell it in slices for the
> 'reasonable' price of $5/g. Selling the entirety of such a meteorite
> at that price might take a few years (or decades for a meteorite that
> weighed a hundred or more kilograms), but the profit margin would be
> substantial.
> With larger finds, a finder would be hard-pressed to get more for it,
> since there are simply so few people who, even if they had the money,
> would be interested in buying any given meteorite at that price. A
> fine example of this would be the Brenham main mass. The 1,400 lb
> oriented pallasite couldn't even fetch $200,000 at auction when it was
> marketed as the largest pallasite ever found in the US, a historic
> meteorite, etc. Was it worth more? Based on current market prices,
> there's no question. But if no one's willing to foot the money, it
> won't sell. And what it's worth is determined by the amount a buyer
> is willing to pay for it.
>
> So smaller pieces of meteorites usually sell for more per gram than
> larger pieces do - but oftentimes, specimens of a gram or so sell for
> 'ridiculous' prices simply because one or two collectors really want a
> piece of it and are willing to pay for a representative example
> regardless of size and quality in relation to price. Larger pieces
> tend to stick to perceived "values" because the folks with that sort
> of money usually aren't in that big of a rush to spend it, though
> particularly aesthetic meteorites have occasionally sold for
> 'exorbitant' amounts.
>
> 7) Random pricing curve-balls. Peekskill, a common L6 that fell in
> New York in 1992, should be worth $10-20 per gram. But it happened to
> fall on Michelle Knapp's Chevrolet Malibu. Because it hit a car, it's
> apparently worth ~$250 per gram, give or take. The car went from
> being worth a few hundred dollars to being worth, apparently, an
> estimated ~$60+ thousand dollars. Random, but apparently there are
> enough people out there who are willing to pay that much per gram for
> a small piece of a meteorite that hit a car.
>
> 8) Fall vs find. A "fall" is a meteorite that is seen to fall by a
> person - whether the fireball is seen/heard, or a stone lands right in
> front of someone, the meteorite is deemed a "fall." If a new
> meteorite is *found* in the US (e.g. by a meteorite hunter on a dry
> lake, or by someone prospecting for gold or meteorites with a metal
> detector), depending on the type, rarity, etc...a new L6 might sell
> for $5-20 per gram, (where it falls in that range depends largely on
> the dealer that purchases it from the finder and what they choose to
> set the price at), and after the initial hype quiets down, it might
> sell for between $2 and $5 per gram. The last large witnessed *fall*
> in the US, Ash Creek, an L6 with a tkw of ~20-30 kilograms, initially
> sold for $100/g on ebay. The price later settled to ~$20-30 per gram.
> But a small complete stone that weighed a few grams might still be
> worth upwards of $50 per gram simply because people tend to like
> small, fresh, complete stones. They're harder to find, and you can't
> cut up a larger one to make them - they have to be found as-is. Hence
> the premium. And even if they're not fresh, small complete stones
> still demand a reasonable base value.
>
> 9) Who's selling it. Some dealers are able to sell common chondrites
> from NWA for several dollars per gram. Others couldn't get $0.50 per
> gram for the same material if they tried, simply because of their
> clientele and reputation. Often, the preparation and presentation of
> the material is a factor, but I also find that the seller can be the
> sole apparent factor in determining pricing, for whatever reason.
> Remember "old yeller?" NWA 4292. A weathered L6 covered in yellowish
> caliche. Sold well for a common fusion-crust-less meteorite from NWA,
> consistently fetching dollars per gram. I'm not trying to say that it
> wasn't worth that, but...it almost always sold for a high price,
> relatively speaking.
> ---
> [End excerpt.]
>
> I'd like to make a few comments pertaining to the current thread, as well.
>
> 1) The collectibility of something is determined by its appeal to the
> collector. People are attracted to different things -- whether
> someone has a 'type' collection, a locality collection, etc. -- that's
> all personal preference. I have the feeling that you intended the
> first question to pertain more to question of value than to the 'why,'
> so the above excerpt is likely more useful than this direct answer.
>
> 2) Values are determined by the seller; each time s/he lets a specimen
> go, he is setting a selling value for the given meteorite being sold.
> Sellers set examples for the price(s) at which pieces of a given
> meteorite can be obtained. At the same time, every time a meteorite
> is bought, the buyer sets the value. By being willing to pay a given
> amount for a meteorite, the buyer is setting a price at which that
> dealer can expect to sell that meteorite in the future. That is how
> prices are set. People talk to each other about past sales and
> purchases, and, generally, there is some consensus on value, and a
> reasonable (well, 'agreed-upon as reasonable') range is established.
>
> 3) More martians and lunars will continue to be found, so I don't see
> both of these types of meteorites as likely to increase in value any
> time soon. That said, people have yet to realize that we're finding
> martian meteorites significantly less often than we're finding lunars.
> Why are martians worth consistently less per gram right now? I'm
> still trying to figure that one out.
>
> 4) Yes and no. On the one hand, these space rocks are infinitely more
> rare than most of the collectible 'stuff' you can find on ebay,
> ranging from sports cards to Pez candy dispensers and the like. The
> perspective that I (and others that I've spoken to, esp. within the
> 'meteorite world') have generally had when viewing these things is
> that people had made them, and that people could make more of them if
> they so chose. What's the difference between a first edition book and
> a second edition? The words prior to "edition," and perhaps the
> correction of typos. And value, apparently. The first edition, more
> likely to be rife with errors, is worth more. Go figure.
> And the penny that the folks at the treasury couldn't even set
> straight is now worth more than most meteorites:
>
> http://minterrornews.com/priceguide.html
>
> So, a person's mistake is worth more than a reasonably large piece of
> the 4.5 billion year old, pristine material dating from the formation
> of the solar system that can give us insights on how we, our planet,
> and our entire solar system came into being. Which would you rather
> have? A gram or so of Ivuna, or a 1943 error penny? More people
> would choose the penny. Go figure.
>
> Supply and demand.
>
> Meteorites are priced based on supply and demand, and the price is set
> by buyers and sellers alike. Therefore the price is exactly where it
> should be, because, in theory, a price set by supply and demand is a
> fair price... The meteorites I want, I buy, and the meteorites I
> don't want, I don't buy. Would I like to have a nice pallasite?
> Sure, but not enough to sell the house and car to buy it. And so the
> Fukang/Brenham/Seymchan/Brahin main masses remain unsold (to my
> knowledge). Canada decided that they wanted the biggest piece of
> Springwater and were willing to pay fair value for it -- an example of
> the almost unique exception to what usually happens.
>
> 5) I can predict little. The market is irrational. The only way one
> can make money in meteorites is not through rationally trying to
> understand what the value of a given meteorite *should be,* but rather
> by knowing what people are willing to pay for a given meteorite at a
> given time. I assume general stability, and that, over time, prices
> will generally rise with inflation, as most things seem to follow that
> rule. That's about it. In the past few years I've seen some prices
> skyrocket, and others drop horrifically. I shudder to think of those
> who invested in lunars and/or martians ten or fifteen years ago.
> They're out thousands of dollars. Tens of thousands. The more they
> spent, the more they lost.
> Meteorites like Gold Basin that were worth $0.50-$1/g ten years ago,
> and that are worth the same now, have declined substantially in value.
> [Inflation.] Something to ponder.
>
> With regards to Jim's comments about Franconia, I have two thoughts:
>
> First is that while they may be getting harder to find, they're still
> being found, and there's little demand for them now that most people
> who want one, have one. Just because it costs someone $150 to find a
> meteorite doesn't mean that the rock is inherently "worth" $150 or
> more. If you are hunting in order to sell your finds for money, and
> people aren't willing to pay you what it costs to find them, it
> probably means that you should rethink your business model. Telling
> buyers that they should pay more can work in certain situations,
> but...I'm not going to pay you $10/g for Franconia. I suppose someone
> else might, and if you can convince them to spend that much on it,
> bully to you.
>
> But I find it hard to believe. The 850 gram individual on ebay for
> $650 has been there for months. Still no takers.
>
> Second is that I'm surprised that you would name Franconia as
> underpriced when both you and I can purchase a visually identical (or
> nicer) meteorite from NWA for 1/20 of the price. Literally. Moroccan
> dealers had NWA ordinary chondrites in bins for $0.05 per gram this
> year in Tucson. Some asked $0.10 per gram. The newly available CV3's
> from an apparently large find were available for $0.50 or less
> (carbonaceous chondrites!!).
>
> And they couldn't sell them. There was simply too much of it around.
> Given five or ten years, I'm sure it will all disappear, but...perhaps
> I'm alone in this. Why do you believe that an H5 from Arizona should
> be worth more than an H5 from NWA when they're ultimately the same
> thing?
>
> They take just as much time to find in NWA, after all. It's not like
> meteorites fall less often here in the US.
>
> Don't get me wrong -- I've bought enough Franconia myself, at 'fair'
> prices. They're "worth," what they're "worth."
>
> As someone who knows the market and who knows that an H5 is an H5, you
> should still recognize that the difference in pricing is based solely
> on the fact that we as a community have decided that a meteorite that
> takes ten hours for an American to find is worth twenty times more
> than a meteorite that it takes ten hours for a Moroccan to find.
>
> I'm glad for that, because if that weren't the case, the meteorites
> we've spent eleven years finding here in California would be worth a
> mere few hundred dollars, but...just sayin.'
>
> Lastly, I'm amazed at the degree to which some people are allowing
> personal interests to work their way into these posts. I'm not going
> to name names, but, seriously -- if you're going to say that the
> meteorite *you* just bought a lot of and are currently trying to sell
> for a profit is the one that you think should drastically increase in
> value...I've just lost some respect for you. This was meant to be an
> educational thread, not an ad.
>
> Regards,
> Jason
>
>
> Jason Utas
> University of California, Berkeley 2012
> College of Letters and Science
> Psychology, Geology
>
>
>
> On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 2:17 PM, Jim Wooddell <jimwooddell at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Kevin,
>>
>> I can say that any meteorite found in the USA, in known strewn fields
>> is undervalued both in "Cha-Ching" as well as scientifically.
>> The cost of collecting such specimens, such as a simple OC
>> from...say...Franconia, is a very time consuming, expensive venture.
>> A typical hunt day can easily cost $150 per day or more not including
>> man-hours if a hunter's time is worth anything.
>> Yesterday, for example, a two person hunt at Franconia came up with
>> one (1) 17.4g OC. So minus the "just getting there" tiime, vehicle
>> costs, etc., there were 13 man-hours
>> of on the ground hunting for that one space rock. And, there are
>> hunts where no one comes up with anything.
>> Cold finds are even worse! It has been written that 800 man-hours
>> between any kind of find might not be hard to do. The amount of time
>> invested is simply worth far more than anyone is paying for them, to
>> the point of being embarrassing for the industry. Don't quit your day
>> job doing this...you will starve to death. Anyone can do the math.
>>
>>
>> So, yes. My opinion is that they are way undervalued to the extreme.
>> Just my point of view.
>>
>> Kind Regards,
>>
>> Jim Wooddell
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Mon, Feb 21, 2011 at 10:14 AM, Kevin Kichinka <marsrox at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> 3. What are the most undervalued meteorites or categories of
>>> meteorite? In what categories do you see the most potential for
>>> growth?
>>>
>>> 4. Do you believe that meteorites are undervalued or overvalued
>>> overall, in comparison to other collectibles such as fossils or coins
>>> or wristwatches or contemporary art?
>>>
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Received on Mon 21 Feb 2011 10:06:41 PM PST