FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[mogok]

Sellers now know very well the prices. The problem is that in the market there are more dealers and very few new customers. So every dealer have less customers and try to charge more each client to cover the general expenses that every year increase.
The same problems have the miners with less customers and also the general cost for a mine increase in last years(gasoline, electricity, food, etc).
The top customer now are very well informed about price but the few newcomers not and the dealers are waiting such kind of client. Anyway this situation will sure not help in the future the market. We are near to a collapse of many dealers. This was the situation this year saw in Tucson show but we will see better next year with many dealers sure not coming anymore at the show. Too expensive, few customers and general expenses increased. The market in the next years will be more selective with less but more serious dealers.

Cheers

[alfredo]

Mogok, I do not agree with you that high prices are due to a larger number of dealers chasing a diminishing number of customers. That would be a violation of the most elementary laws of economics, and many dealers would very quickly be out of business. Be assured that the number of new customers for minerals has been increasing rapidly, thanks mainly to the internet.

To Jordi's question, I'll respond that neither dealers nor collectors can know the "real" value of a mineral, because a mineral specimen has no intrinsic value at all. We can't eat it or live in it. We are all just trying to put a price on desire - another human's desire to possess rock. What is the value of Van Gogh's 15 sunflowers? Some yellow paint and a canvas for $10? Someone paid $40,000,000 for that painting. Was it payment for extraordinary talent? Many young painters with equal skill might not be able to get $400 for a painting. And why $40,000,000, and not $20 million, or $80 million? Just because at that moment there was one customer willing to spend $40,000,000 to satisfy his desire, and there wasn't anyone, at that moment, willing or able to spend $41 million to satisfy his desire. The mineral specimen business is not so different, except that I can't find anyone so strongly desirous of possessing my grey franckeite that he will pay more than $300 for it ;-((

Alfredo

[Jordi Fabre]

Alfredo,

I agree with your Van Gogh's appraisal. I do not would be preoccupied if the same thing would happen with the minerals. I mean: following your idea and considering that a mineral purchase is mostly a human desire, their prices could be, as the Van Gogh paint, 20, 40 or 80, why not?. But what we are talking about is not the half or the double, but one or two ceros more, graciously added.

The market is smart and I don't think that it will collapse, I'm just worried about all this new customers recently arrived to the market. They could be disappointed very fast and left the hobby quickly if they feel that the mineral market is a crazy market, where prices could have one, two, or three ceros more, easily added to the "real" prices.

We had a "golden age" of mineral's sells on the last years, I'm preoccupied for possible future undesired consequences of this (maybe) too fast growing.

Jordi

[mogok]

dear alfredo
probably you wasnt in tucson this years.
dealers wasnt happy about the business.very few customers in the show.
about the intrinsique value of a mineral or gem few people consider hte cost of work in the mines.the higher cost of rubies and sapphires(for sample)in the last year depend mainly from the fact oft he higher costs of production. after, if the market will accept these new prices will be oneother problem. to see the real intrinsique value of a mineral or gem you have to go in the mines and you will see that is not a painting.

[str4hler]

Dear "Mogok",

Alfredo is probably the person who is yearly in Tucson the longest time of all ;-)
The police has to send him away after 5 weeks.... illegal Tucson immigrant!
And... he was probably more underground than you and me together.
Assumptions are more dangerous than old mines ;-)

Cheers! Frank

[Carles Curto]

Maybe it is all more simple that it looks like? Reading all the posts I feel everybody has a more or less big piece of truth, but the market is as it is and I cannot imagine a market with sellers but without buyers. If prices are how they are is because the client is agree and he pay the asked prices.
But, very often, my perception of the actual mineral market is that the variety of species, localities and levels of quality are considerably higher than relatively few years ago and this circumstance, added to the the big amount of graphic information of splendid specimens all over the world (books, magazines, webs...) changed the perception of the collector about what is “normal” or “unusual” in mineralogy. General mineralogical taste is positively evolued, but not the pocket.
I have very ilustrative old records of particular information about minerals actually on the Museum. A concrete collector, for example, paid in 1968, 6.000 pts. (more or less 100$ then, a little fortune for a mineral in those daysl!) for a geode of amethyst than most of the actual modest collectors even didn’t note.
This variety on the actual mineral supply and the graphic information of splendid specimens can change the perception about what is “normal” or “unusual” in mineralogy. Taste is positively changed, but not the pocket, then the pices "sound" high.

[James Catmur]

When I look at how some dealers work they are very good at creating that 'desire to own' among collectors that you talk about. They call you to tell you about the opportunity, they tell you about all the people that are interested in the specimens, they tell you about the investment opportunity (which as others have said is not real), they help you plan how to get what you want and beat the others, etc, etc. But one has to assume that they do this with all their clients. So you loose some degree of rationality about the whole process and pay too much (and as other have said, we have no idea what the right price is). They have managed this process on me and I have bought - but afterwards I always feel 'dirty' and that I have been abused.

So if they work this on people, great for them - I now try to avoid these types of dealers.

If we take the art market example, we know that people will pay very high prices but we also know that prices fall as fashions change (look at the prices of chinese modern art at the moment). So I guess we wait for the fashion to change and see what happens to mineral prices.

For all that others have said I still feel, as I said at the beginning, that we are going to see a significant 'adjustment' in the market and that we all have to hope that those of us that are part of this world because we are passionate about minerals and mineralogy can work our way through this.

[John S. White]

Guess I will have to weigh in on this one. I strongly disagree with Mogok with respect to his prediction that we will see fewer dealers next year. The number of dealers appears to be growing each year and the high end dealers are not going out of business even with greater competition.

Alfredo was indeed in Tucson, and he was also in Munich and Denver and I assume that he was at the Springfield Show. A more astute observer of the scene you would be hardpressed to find.

Most of the mineral dealers I spoke with were very pleased with their sales at Tucson, I heard very little unhappiness, and most of that was among the gem dealers, not the mineral dealers.

My mentor at the Smithsonian, Paul Desautels, always argued that minerals were undervalued and that they should be as desirable and expensive as fine art. He must now be smiling wherever he is.

[mogok]

dear john
maybe you have a different point of wiew but also me i was in tucson denver and munich.
and the shows was low. if you are a customer and you ask to a dealer is normal that he say that everything was ok. but i am a dealer and i know very well that many of my collegue didnt have even the money to pay the plane ticket to return home this year in tucson.
if you want a better opinion you can ask to an organizer of shows. they always claims
thousands and thousands of visitors and happy dealers and customers.but if you was this year in tucson looking at the car parking out from the shows and restaurant was never full like the previous year. anyway we will see next year how will be the situation.
i enyoy with crystals and gems and i hope better for everybody.

[James Catmur]

So will we see two types of market - the high end Picassos and the normal good material, much as we do in the art world. This could happen but still risks the 'good' being sold as the 'best' and causing a shake down

[mogok]

dear frank
i dont know alfredo experience but i know that i came in tucson from 1991 and the real market not the pumped one.

[mogok]

dear frank
if you have a light on your head this dont mean that you are a miner!
cheers mogok

[mogok]

you are rgth frank
assumptions are more danger than old mines!
so how you know that alfredo is probably the most old experience person in tuscon?
this mean something?
more time you spent in tucson more your speaking is correct?
...do what you like,like what you do!
cheers mogok

[Brokenstone]

Good day for all, I'm disagree with James about the types of market. This is my vision of this market:
-High End Minerals. Customers: Museums. Wealthy Collectors.
-Top Minerals. Customers: Wealthy Colectors.Dealers.
-Good Minerals. Customers: Universitys. Big Collectors. Institutions. Dealers
-New Minerals. Customers: All, included Collectors,Colleges, and Dealers.
-Damaged Minerals. Customers: Litle Collectors. Amateurs and Dealers.
-Fake minerals. Customers: Undefined people.
Is a big market,every day most stronger, many fast, today we, the collectors can buy minerals around the world with a simple clic, this fantastic advance is a revolution of the old mineral markets. Today is possible grow too fast if be a serious dealer and better person, not only a mineral dealer, as Carles Curto said: "a mineral animal"
In the mineral market work many dealers and increasing his number every day, gem dealers are unhappy with few business, perhaps they could be go to anothers markets for another people, womans in home maybe his first customers.
Nice days.
Pablo

[John S. White]

With respect to the comments of Mogok, I say that all one needs do is look at the growth in the number and size of the various independent shows around Tucson and the number of dealers. If dealers are doing so poorly, they will not come back. But they do come back, and in increasing numbers. Either they are making money or they are very foolish. I find it hard to believe that these people can afford to take a loss year after year and yet keep returning. Moreover, there are more of them each year.

Perhaps the dealers at the club show are not doing so well, and that is unfortunate if true, but the others overall seem to be satisfied.