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@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 ______________________________________________ Visit our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/meteoritecentral and the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com Meteorite-list mailing list Meteorite-list@meteoritecentral.com https://pairlist3.pair.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
