[meteorite-list] A Curator Replies

[Moni Waiblinger]

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

> 

> 


_________________________________________________________________
Insert movie times and more without leaving Hotmail®. 
http://windowslive.com/Tutorial/Hotmail/QuickAdd?ocid=TXT_TAGLM_WL_HM_Tutorial_QuickAdd_062009