FMF - Friends of Minerals Forum, discussion and message board

[alfredo]

To add to what John wrote on the slim chances of a novice buyer getting any great deals "at the source":

Local dealers in Third World mining districts will generally NOT show new visiting buyers their best pieces, for several reasons: 1) They frequently have long established relations with a dealer or dealers they trust, so better stuff is reserved for those people while newcomers are offered the dregs. Rock Currier disagrees with me on this point; he thinks Third World dealers are mostly so hungry for money that everything is instantly on sale to the first comer with cash and nothing is held back, but I don't find that to be the case in Andean countries at least, although I can't say anything about Africa or Asia, not having much experience there.
2) An increasing number of Third World miners and dealers bring things to Tucson, Ste Marie or Munich themselves, and they save their better pieces in order to make a bigger "splash" at the show, just selling off enough lesser stuff in advance at home to finance the trip.
3) A lot of Third World miners and dealers are canny enough to hide the "good stuff" (often for months or a couple years) until all the lesser stuff is sold, on the theory that no one will want third-rate material after they've seen the "good stuff". And when they DO show you the top stuff, the price asked will be astronomical, often far more than that piece will eventually sell for at Tucson. That seems at first sight illogical, but it makes sense to the seller. Almost all Third World miners now have access to the internet and they check the top international dealers' websites and marvel at the prices asked for specimens from the miner's home country. They now dream of getting those same prices for less-than-perfect specimens, which of course they won't get, but a few potential buyers have to reject the pieces first before the asking price comes down to realistic levels. It used to be axiomatic that "the early bird gets the worm" and the first dealer on the scene of a new find made a killing, but nowadays it is often rather a case of "the second mouse gets the cheese". Anyway, thanks to the internet, the old "neocolonialist" practices of the 1970s and 80s, where itinerant First World dealers would go to the source and buy $1,000 rocks for $1 and a few bottles of beer, are over. Gone. And rightfully so, in my opinion.