[meteorite-list] Fwd: Rob Elliott retiring as seller (?!)

[Michael L Blood]

on 4/4/07 9:18 AM, Martin Altmann at altmann at meteorite-martin.de wrote:
> In a few years you won't find almost no professional meteorite dealers
> anymore. Only a small oligopoly. And a few collectors, selling here and
> there a piece.
----------------
Hi Martin,
        I have to respectfully disagree. When I started it was before the
internet was up and running. Very few people had a computer and they
were used mainly as a word processors?
        All the dealers I knew of (and it wasn't easy finding them, as all
the other dealers wanted to prevent people knowing of their "competition")
were advertising in Lapidary Journal or Sky & Tellescope and the like and
sending out mailing lists. I remember the first Tucson Show I attended
after starting in meteorites and was delighted to find 4 or 5 meteorite
dealers there.
        And what do you think the buyer of Rob E's "collection" is going
to do with the countless "duplicates" he just acquired? (if this story is,
in fact, true - Rob does have a sense of humor, you know).
        Don't hold your breath for dealers to disappear. As long as there
are collectors there will be dealers - and before there were many
collectors, there were dealers.
        Now, with everyone getting a "free web page" with their email
service there are hundreds of dealers. Someone just posted something
like 67 well known ones? Ya, we're runnin' out of dealers fast!
        Best wishes, Michael

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