[meteorite-list] Lunar meteorites selling for peanuts

From: Apollo <apollocollector_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 30 May 2015 07:30:41 -0700
Message-ID: <A0CA4A97-0452-4C54-8600-2E2DE49EDCA8_at_q.com>

Good morning,
I guess that I haven't been following the market as closely as I should have...but if any dealers have nice Martian or lunar specimens for sale at prices anywhere near what the recent posts have mentioned, I would appreciate hearing from you.
Thanks,
Dennis

Sent from my iPhone

> On May 30, 2015, at 6:41 AM, Bigjohn Shea via Meteorite-list <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com> wrote:
>
>
> It is true that rare things will always be rare and will be priced accordingly, and for that reason you may be entirely right Michael that it can be simply supply and demand. Personally though, I think "supply and demand" is too simple a concept for collectible items. What I mean is, I wonder how much of this shift in price might be due to the recent strength of the dollar?
>
> In case someone is not following:
> An example of this is what is happening in the antique Japanese sword market. The value of the yen relative to the dollar is 120 to 1 currently. Which is different than it was about a year ago when the dollar was weaker, and the value was perhaps 100 to 1. Japanese swords in Japan that were selling for 100,000 yen last year (1000 dollars) are not currently worth 120,000 yen in Japan. They are still only worth 100,000 yen. In other words, the value of a sword does not go up simply because a foreign currency became stronger. However, because the dollar is stronger now, you can get a better sword out of Japan for the same price in dollars as you would have paid for a lesser sword last year. In other words, 1000 dollars today (120,000 yen) buys you a more valuable sword than it did last year simply because the dollar got stronger.
>
> Now consider a sword that an American sword merchant/collector bought from Japan last year for 1000 dollars (100,000 yen) and is now here in America. It is still worth 1000 dollars here, but now that you can buy a 120,000 yen sword for 1000 dollars, (and those swords are plenty available in Japan) why would someone buy a sword valued at 100,000 yen for 1000 dollars here in America, when they can get a "better" sword (valued at 120,000 yen) from Japan for the same 1000 dollars?
>
> This same type of scenario can be true in for rare books, meteorites etc. etc. If, for example, Mike Meteorite Merchant bought a 10,000 dollar 1000g Lunar mass from Morocco last year when the dollar was weaker, now that the dollar is stronger the same 1000g Lunar mass might only cost 8,000 dollars from a merchant in Morocco. That devalues Mike's meteorite. If he wants to sell bits and pieces of it, he has to sell it for similar value as what the newer cheaper specimens are selling for.
>
> Can I say for sur
Received on Sat 30 May 2015 10:30:41 AM PDT