About dealers prices.  I price shells by what I have to pay for them either
in trade or CASH. If a common shell cost me 50 cents in trade, I now have
to add stocking, adv. mailing, and a few other things to the price, which
now brings it up to the $1.00 or $1.25.  I and many other dealers do not
have much choice on this.  Yes, it is less expensive to collect it your
self, but only if you go to all the places the common shell comes from.  I
have froound the common shell much harder to get than the rare shell, as
the diver and the collector wants the most they can get for their time in
the water, no blame from me here,  No we cannot afford to sell at a loss,
almost all of us are small one person businesses, and do not have the time
to sell all common low priced shells.  I did this one time and worked all
week filling orders for a grand total of less than $50.00 and this was the
gross, not net.  If you will go to my page on molluscs.net you will see a
lot fo tree and land shells in the low range Jan wants.  If you live in
Europe, and want to collect a common shell in Florida, how much do you
think it will now cost you to collect this shell yourself?
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