[meteorite-list] Auctioneer Abuse of Meteorites was: Pallasite

[Michael Farmer]

Martin, I have no problems with auctions. I have problems with giving more 
than 50% in fees and sellers premiums, I can do better on ebay than selling 
my lunars are Bonhams and losing over 50% of the selling price.
Do you also know that you pay sellers fees even if the item does not sell?
So let's say I want to sell a full slice of Lunar, the price is minimum 
$50,000. If it does not sell, I am still on the hook for $7000 in fees to 
Bonhams.
Not a way to make money.
Mike Farmer
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Martin Altmann" <Altmann at Meteorite-Martin.de>
To: "Michael Farmer" <meteoritehunter at comcast.net>; 
<meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2005 10:18 AM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Auctioneer Abuse of Meteorites was: Pallasite


> Hi Mike,
>
> in priciple I imagine the idea to sell meteorites via an auction house to 
> be
> not so absurd.
> (Must exist more serious enterprises than this one.)
>
> You know it by your own, if one has larger and rare, thus expensive pieces
> for sale,
> how one has to slog to sell it at an acceptable price, cause the 
> collectors'
> community is so small, a real petri dish
> and in our times, the prophet's word is true more than ever:
>
> "Bah, the market is in ruin."
> .                         Matteo 4,23
> Take Moon.
> The average meteorite collector can't afford to buy larger pieces or 
> prefers
> to buy many different localities and types rather than to spend all the
> money for a single larger piece. So what to do, one has to chip it into
> hundreds of minute specimens sending a remarkable amount of material as 
> cut
> loss down to Orcus, and afterwards one has to sell it over many, many 
> years.
> Those who are interested in lunaites, are specialists - for the normal
> collectors it's sufficient to have a single specimen of a lunaite to 
> include
> that type in his/her collection and important in the first instance for 
> them
> is, that it's a piece of Moon and not a luniate with special
> particularities.
> And these specialists are deep in that matter. If in Kalahari a large 
> chunk
> is found, they speculate, that soon Moon will be available at 20$/g and 
> they
> won't buy, if a desparate finder or a collector, who has to pay some 
> bills,
> is loosing a piece by accident on ebay at a few hundreds per gram, they
> won't buy anymore at the price that number had before (and here in Germany
> they suspect you of ripping them off, if you refuse to immediately adapt
> your price to the ebay-accident (the most astonishing one I saw, was, when 
> a
> 1g Dho-lunar slice died at only 150$)), then you can't sell for as long as 
> a
> year anymore, until the accident is forgotten...
>
> So why not to address via an auction house with a sounding name, prestige,
> established clientele and publicity input to a completely different and
> larger group of buyers?
> If those auction houses sell fine art, antiquities and other pricy
> collectibles and among the clients there are some, who have no problems to
> spend regularly many k$ - with the right presentation it could work. I 
> mean
> e.g. lunaites still are by faaaaar more rare, than anything else, which is
> sold there, but relatively or better to say dirt cheap compared to the
> items, which are going there - but more fascinating also for the layman. 
> Not
> many are knowing at all, that it's possible to own a stone from Moon.
>
> At least a try wouldn't be not such a bad idea. If it won't work, the 
> owner
> can carry on with dumping that stuff on ebay and to fight with the ups and
> downs of that, what some call "The Market".
>
> Buckleboo!
> Martin
>
>
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----- 
> From: "Michael Farmer" <meteoritehunter at comcast.net>
> To: <MexicoDoug at aol.com>; <Altmann at Meteorite-Martin.de>;
> <steve_arnol60120 at yahoo.com>
> Cc: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Saturday, November 26, 2005 5:05 PM
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Auctioneer Abuse of Meteorites was: 
> Pallasite
>
>
>> That is one of the best emails I have read in a long time!
>> Butterfields wanted me to put some Lunar and Martian specimens in their
>> auction a couple of years ago, I just laughed when they presented me with
>> the details.
>> Do you also know, that the buyer must arrange shipping, not too handy of
> an
>> option if you say, live in Russia, and need to call LA to find a shipping
>> company and make arrangements for them not only to ship, but to package 
>> as
>> well. It seems like Bonhams is not only greedy, but too lazy to take care
> of
>> the details.
>> I to get sick of reading these misleading things about other meteorites 
>> to
>> promote that one. Esquel has not been hacked up. There are complete
> slices,
>> the largest pallasite slices in the world already cut and sold of Esquel.
> I
>> have yet to see one of Fukang, only hacked up partslices.
>> If it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck, it must be a duck.
>> Mike Farmer
>>
>
>