Paul Monfils wrote:
>
> Tom,
> Aren't you glad you didn't buy that gloriamaris!!
> I paid $75.00 apiece for my first two Cypraea teulerei, 30 years ago.
>  Now you can get a nice one for $10.00.  You are right about shells
> not being a good investment (financially speaking).  They almost
> always decrease in value over time.  A few species may be on the
> brink of extinction, particularly terrestrial species; but usually if
> a marine species is still living, then somewhere there has to be a
> population dense enough to ensure that individuals can find mates.
> The "loners" that are collected over a widespread area usually just
> represent individuals that were carried away from the breeding area
> as floating larvae.  Conus gloriamaris was being collected at the
> rate of one or two specimens per year, until a couple of guys went to
> a small unpopulated island in the Philippines and collected 80 of them
> in one afternoon, and the price dropped accordingly.  Today, many
> areas are known where that species can be collected, and the shell,
> while still uncommon, is not a great rarity.  There may be a locality
> where Conus cervus is equally common.  If so, eventually someone will
> find it, and the price will drop.  As you noted, some values do
> increase over time, but usually not as fast as inflation, therefore
> the net effect is a decrease in value.
> There is an old story, I'm not sure how true, about Epitonium
> scalare.  As the story goes, some European emperor owned the only
> known specimen.  When a second specimen became available, the emperor
> paid a fabulous price at auction for the shell, then put it on the
> floor and stomped on it, thereby ensuring that his first specimen
> remained the one and only.  Hopefully most of us approach our
> collections with a bit more reserve than that.
> Paul M.
> Providence, Rhode Island, USA
 
There is one more story about crushed shells.In 1856 it was published
that a Danish collector Chris Hwass had purchased one gloriamaris at an
auction in 1792.He crushed specimen underfoot to make the remaining
specimen more valuable.It's a false tale invented by a writer whose name
I don't remember.
With best regards,Milan