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  #76  
Old 08/11/2005, 07:07 PM
Jus Reefin Jus Reefin is offline
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Villi, look around all of us HARDCORE Acan people are right here


If I like it I buy it !!!!
  #77  
Old 08/12/2005, 04:16 AM
Vili_Shark Vili_Shark is offline
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Jus reefin,
Pls dont get offended, but seriously....dont you feel a bit , how to say, weired to pay a 4 digit sum for a coral that is worth 50-60 dollar retail? (and Im not refering you in person in case you didnt buy it).

Im not talking about the Japanese Acan, I'm going back to April May, when people pay thousands for frags that were 120% Indonesian lordhowensis.

Back then when people, including Mr.Calfo said it is overpriced, everybody jumped on him with "free market" stuff etc.

reefin, you were here back then, you know what Im talking about.
  #78  
Old 08/12/2005, 09:36 AM
Jus Reefin Jus Reefin is offline
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I have never spent a 4 digit sum for one coral but honeslty I don't think anyone should feel wierd if they did. I grew up EXTREMELY poor so I am a firm believer in If you like it and can afford it then buy it. People spend $5k on a dog and IMO that is NUTS but IMO "to each there own". My $2800 TV I bought 2 years ago is now only about $1500 but I'm not upset about it

BTW no offense taken
  #79  
Old 08/12/2005, 02:31 PM
Stixbaraca Stixbaraca is offline
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Exactly Jus Reefin...if you like it then buy it! It is worth what someone will pay for it. I never understood why this topic kept getting beat dead...and why some complain about prices (can't afford maybe?). People buy what they like to look at...and can afford. Market prices always adjust to supply and demand anyway. Mark-ups are just the name of the game...look at diamonds for example...what is their real molecular worth...maybe a dollar...you think they are rare???
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  #80  
Old 08/12/2005, 02:36 PM
beerguy beerguy is offline
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Stixbaraca the difference in your analogy is that diamonds actually are rare. They require special conditions to form and therefore only readily occur in a few locations.

Market prices are only valid if they're based on actual conditions, not made up descriptions.
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  #81  
Old 08/12/2005, 02:47 PM
Stixbaraca Stixbaraca is offline
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There are a lot more diamonds around that acans...and the prices on diamonds are what they are because of how they are placed into the market by De Beers and marketed. Conditions also have to be right for Acans to be grown, and they are only produced in the wild in a few locations...diamonds are propagated much like acans...but the wild ones still bring more money...much like acans!
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  #82  
Old 08/12/2005, 02:49 PM
beerguy beerguy is offline
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Your entitled to your opinion. It would be an easier position to defend if they were actually rare in the wild.

You're entitled to your opinion on the matter; just as I'm entitled to my opinion.


Cheers
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  #83  
Old 08/12/2005, 02:51 PM
john76 john76 is offline
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It's actually correct as far as Debeers controlling the market to keep prices inflated. And others profiting from the same inflated prices.

The difference would be that you can't easily reproduce or prop diamonds.... corals can be cultured.

Off topic..... From what I've heard... man made stones aren't of the same clarity as rough cut... and I think currently only come in blue.
  #84  
Old 08/12/2005, 03:13 PM
Vili_Shark Vili_Shark is offline
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Analogy to diamonds is not right.

I see you dont get what I mean, or maybe you dont really want to get what I mean.

There are corals and fish in the hobby that will cost thosands, and is acceptable, take Centropyge boylei as an example, it is rare, it is known only from very remote islands and found in 200-300 feet, now when you tell me this fish is expensive I can understand why.

When you tell me that A.lorhowensis is expensive, I do not understand why, people in this fourm were saying it is not coming from Indonesia, and justifying the high price by saying it is coming only from Lord Howe island, then saying it came from Japan etc. whatever.
Indonesia? no it is not from there.
All the above comments I read IN THIS FORUM from people who wanted to justify the high price for this species.
Then I went to Singapore,that was 3 months ago, and I see hundreds of lordhowensis, the so called rare coral, at the same point of time people here were paying thousand or hundreds for small pieces of lords , while I see 250gallon plastic containers filled with lords that you cant see the plastic bottom, all sold for like 30.00-50.00 dollars and that price went up only cause the Singaporeans knew they can high price in America for this species.

If something is rare and expensive, it should be about the same all over, I remember back then on this forum somebody made an analogy for a Benz S600 V12 will cost in one place 150K in the other 250K due to higher tax, you'll never get it in 5K.
  #85  
Old 08/12/2005, 04:05 PM
baja_01 baja_01 is offline
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I think you missing the point. Acans are comming down now. Entire coloies are now going for what sigle polyps were going for at one time.

It will take awhile for acans to become regular over hear.

Its simmilar to trying to find ricordia florida out side of the states. We have them here, selling for 5-10 bucks, while in other places you can't even find them.

No one who knew anything ever claimed they were rare every where, just in our trade, and lords were very hard to find in the US for a long time. Now they are comming in and the colors that are comming in are falling in price.
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  #86  
Old 08/12/2005, 04:30 PM
Vili_Shark Vili_Shark is offline
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VERY good example Baja,
Even though you didnt really mean it!
R.floridae, in the states you can get them in most places and they dont command high price, very common and quite cheap.
In South east asia they are hard to find, but nobody will pay hundreds or thousands of dollars for it cause it is hard to find or not coming in regullary.
Get my point?
I know Acans are coming down now, follow my post in this thread, I'm talking about THIS forum on March,April,May.
  #87  
Old 08/12/2005, 04:53 PM
FiLM Heo FiLM Heo is offline
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Stixbaraca, your are dead on right. "if you like it then buy it! It is worth what someone will pay for it. I never understood why this topic kept getting beat dead...and why some complain about prices (can't afford maybe?). People buy what they like to look at...and can afford. Market prices always adjust to supply and demand anyway. Mark-ups are just the name of the game..." and also why is everybody B..ching and complaining. What i see lately in RC is that when someone doesn't like or think something they see on a vendor/internet shop it always end up giving the shop a bad rap. that's IMO. can't we all just get along.
  #88  
Old 08/12/2005, 05:20 PM
beerguy beerguy is offline
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My opinion, which is just as valid as yours, is that the prices have been inflated artificially. If people are willing to pay a high price because they've been fed bogus information it's not "market demand" it's fraud. If they are willing to pay a high price and have been given all the facts I don't have a problem with it. Those are two very different market dynamics. It's my opinion that the former scenario has had a much larger impact on acan and micro pricing then the later.

I'm not whining; I'm stating my opinion. Whether you agree or not, it doesn't invalidate my opinion.

Cheers
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  #89  
Old 08/12/2005, 05:24 PM
Vili_Shark Vili_Shark is offline
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Agreed!
  #90  
Old 08/12/2005, 06:00 PM
oddballs oddballs is offline
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People paid hundreds of dollars for Cabbage Patch kids when I was a kid. Were they rare? No. But there was a high demand. And a few months later they weren't worth more than the retail sales price. Same with Elmo and every other fad. People who paid high prices should be happy they had something before everyone else. Some people paid for beautiful color morphs other people just paid for the bragging rights.
  #91  
Old 08/12/2005, 07:33 PM
vpham24 vpham24 is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by Jus Reefin
Villi, look around all of us HARDCORE Acan people are right here


If I like it I buy it !!!!
Jus Reefin, how much do you think this would cost. Or better yet, how much would you pay for it? I just picked these up recently from a friend.







  #92  
Old 08/13/2005, 12:45 AM
RandyO RandyO is offline
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It saddens me to see these discussions turn ugly. The truth is no one really knows what happened exactly. And it can be tough to explain to guys that have not been around very long so see the Acanthastrea saga play out.

A lot of answers can be made by simply doing a RC search for Acanthastrea for all forums, and start at the beginning.

One of the threads you will find back in November of 2003 is this one.
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...t=acanthastrea

The surfacing of a Japanese web site with some beautiful Acanthastrea started getting passed around. This was the first many had ever heard of this coral. And while Eric believes he was responsible for the craze by stating in a thread that they were his favorite coral, I don't think that had anything to do with it. That thread was from 10/1/03 and still has less than 300 views.

Here is another thread from way back. Only a few reefers in this country had these corals in there possession, but you won't see anyone calling them rare.

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...t=acanthastrea

Once this thread was started in early 2004, the pictures started to flow and it became a spitting contest of who had the nicest piece. (117162 views)
http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...t=acanthastrea
The thread became very informative on coral care, and also put this coral on the map. Still, not many were around. Most were purchased under different names. It wasn't a coral you could just walk into any LFS or even wholesaler and purchase. If you could, there would have been a lot more of them around.

Now in 2005, things have changed and you can pick up a small colony of A.lordhowensis much easier.

The idea of the of the Acan market being artificially inflated is interesting. Not sure if there are any facts to back this up. I wouldn't know.

What I do know if that if you do that same search for Acanthastrea, and start at the beginning, you will see that there were not many people selling these corals. And the first frags that were sold were a little less than 50.00 per polyp. This was the market price from the very beginning for these corals in this country. Even though demand shot through the roof for them, the price stayed the same with the exception of wildly colored pieces.

With a coral that grows as fast as this one does, how in the world could a price fix be in affect? Not even a few months later did many people that purchased them resell some of their new growth. It was demand that kept the prices high, IMO.

Maybe there was some sort of Conspiracy theory behind it all. That sounds a lot more far fetch than people really wanting the coral, and shelling out anything they could afford to get it.

In my opinion, the facts are in the old threads. While everyone now has an opinion on the matter, you can't change the past.

You be the judge on what happened. Why this coral became popular, and why so many would pay dearly for the next crazy color morph. If you really want to know, then read through. Though, most of the time, many of the posters wanting answers don't really want to know. They just want to stir the pot. I can't blame them. It's a fun pot to stir since it brings out so many emotions.
But that's what this community is all about.
Isn't it?


PS When I spoke of Acanthastrea in this thread, I was referring only to the lord type. Not echinata.
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Last edited by RandyO; 08/13/2005 at 01:04 AM.
  #93  
Old 08/13/2005, 12:52 AM
RandyO RandyO is offline
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I know the search engine is down a lot during the day, so I'll post the link to the first Acanthastrea threads on RC

http://reefcentral.com/forums/search...&pagenumber=28
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  #94  
Old 08/13/2005, 01:03 AM
vpham24 vpham24 is offline
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Randy, this is the fun part of reading these Acan thread bro. Everyone is so serious.
  #95  
Old 08/13/2005, 01:05 AM
vpham24 vpham24 is offline
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Now Randy, can you tell me what's the market price for those pieces above in your opinion?
  #96  
Old 08/13/2005, 01:14 AM
vpham24 vpham24 is offline
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If you get a chance, take a look at a bunch of nuts in SOCAL who doesn't get offended everytime someone call them names. We would be better friends.

Beerguy, not too much fun to mod this is it? My favorite corals are Acan, and I can say I have a few, so does the rest of the suckers in Socal, but it's just another coral to us.

http://archive.reefcentral.com/forum...hreadid=646297
  #97  
Old 08/13/2005, 01:14 AM
PUGroyale PUGroyale is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by vpham24
Now Randy, can you tell me what's the market price for those pieces above in your opinion?
wholesale = all 4, $25.00
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  #98  
Old 08/13/2005, 01:15 AM
RandyO RandyO is offline
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Quote:
Originally posted by vpham24
Now Randy, can you tell me what's the market price for those pieces above in your opinion?
I'm sure your sick of hearing it, but it's only worth what someone's willing to pay for it.

I can only give you my opinion of what I would pay for it. If that is what your looking for then here it is.

I can honestly say that if I saw that first piece in the LFS and it was priced at 299.99 or less, I would buy it. Anything more and I'd pass it by. That may be very high to one person, and very low to someone else.

In the whole scheme of things, I don't think that's very relevant, unless to use against me later on.
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  #99  
Old 08/13/2005, 01:16 AM
vpham24 vpham24 is offline
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Dave, hahahahaha, close.

all 4 = $25 + tax. California, we need more money.
  #100  
Old 08/13/2005, 01:18 AM
vpham24 vpham24 is offline
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Randy, you're always the wise one. I would say that piece is half the price you mentioned, but you see, what if 5 months from now it's 1/4 of it? Does it matter?
 

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