I would guess probably not. Rarity is only one part of why a certain shell species is desirable.
You need interested buyers and the specimen/s need to be sufficiently hard to get and in limited supply to comand these high prices.
Eg. For a millionaire shell collector US$20,000 is pocket money and they might be willing to pay US$50,000 just to secure a specimen.
What I do think is sad is that once the existence of the 'RED' thersites were confirmed, the sponge gardens off and around Stansbury (Yorke Peninsula) in South Australia's 'Gulf St Vincent' were doomed! They have been devestated by over zealous collectors, idiot's & Yahoo's who have gone out there and cut open any red sponge they could find searching for the Cypraea (Zoila) friendii thersites 'red', black or standard type shells.
I was over that way again in Nov 2005 and speaking to an old time diver who still runs a shell museum on the Yorke Peninsula. What is really sad is that people took any shell they could find, chipped, sand grained, juvenile you name it thinking they were worth money.
The Government has since put a quota system of 1 shell per collector per day in place, but as you can imagine this is hard to enforce. It won't be that long before the thersites is extinct along with the large Cypraea armeniaca 'brunnea', Cypraea (zoila) rosselli 'edingeri' (or red rosselli) and the large thersites from Kangaroo Island/ Port Lincoln area's.
Very sad indeed!
Simon
WOW!!
OK, but is the most expensive, the rarest???
Brian
Philadelphia, Pa. USA
-----Original Message-----
From: Conchologists List [mailto:[log in to unmask]]On Behalf Of
Simon Wilson
Sent: Wednesday, December 28, 2005 17:57
To:
[log in to unmask]
Subject: World's most expensive shell
Great story Guido,
At the 2004 Australian Shell show, a collector refused an offer of $20,000 US for one of the
two Orange Zoila friendii thersites he had found. I later heard that a 3rd specimen (found
by a different collector) was sold for around US$20,000. Not bad for a shell found via
snorkelling at less than 10m deep!!!
regards,
Simon
Melbourne, Australia
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