Dear All,

        there is a relation between price and rarity, but it is not the major rule in price setting. To learn about, please buy Peter Dance's book on 50 Rare Shells, his book on the history of Shell collecting and my latest two books on 1000 Philippine Shells. In the latter books there are pages figuring and discussing briefly the other books that are important to understand "rare shells" or "wanted shells" or "interesting shells". It is a very complex subject, but a fascinating one.
The position of a dealer is definitely different than the position of a collector, but when both are wise, they come together and understand very well each other to make the best for both, out of any given situation.

The particular nice thing in shells is that you can get ultra rare shells for almost nothing. A few hundred dollars, sometimes less than 20 dollars, will buy you shells of which there are only one, eventually half a dozen in collections worldwide. Where can you find a subject as such ? It's fantastic in many ways.

        As for your information, the situation of dealers lining up and waiting for customers is virtually finished here in the Philippines. The fisherman have turned to other occupations and without considerable supply, the middleman have been decimated. There are still a dozen around. The major dealers have either retired or died. The disappearance of Manou de Suduiraut who put a lot of life and finances in Balicasag and Aliguay is significant. Also Victor Pagobo went to the other world, a huge loss for Punta Engano. His brother Rudy, the big pioneer of the seventies, is busy with cock fights and other things.

        The big changes are due to economical factors combined with the appearance of the internet.
        But we here have definitely the feeling that the golden time of tangle netting, which lasted from around 1976 until 2012, more than 3 decades, and which supplied hundreds of people with an income and thousands of shell collectors with fabulous material, is finished.
        The amounts needed to revive the situation are too huge for individual dealers and also for our company. 200 fisherman at 35 dollars a day is still 7000 dollars a day or 210 000 dollars a month... this was affordable as during the 36 years the situation lasted: there was this kind of money from daily dealers worldwide flying in to buy the shells ! Today, there is only one regular dealer from Hong Kong flying in once or twice a month, and for the rest only half a dozen visit in the year.
        This also means that the treasures in collections are highly valuable today. An excelsus which was a quite banal shell still 3 years ago is a treasure in today's environment !

Guido T. Poppe

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