- Joined
- Apr 28, 2009
- Messages
- 783
The only people high T and invert prices hurt are those that cannot afford it. It IMO, creates a "Elitism" and that can be bad.
Very well said, and I agree.Just wow. Ken hit it right on with one point ... just nowhere close on the topic itself. Dealer oversaturation has done a lot of destruction to the hobby. When I first got here there were hobby pioneers still in large numbers. We traded amongst each other and sold off our excess stock low enough where we made money back to feed our own projects we enjoyed keeping and learning about. Thanks to dealers trying to make a buck from something that was trading at a market sustainable price, the pioneers got disgusted in large numbers. Im not saying dealers are bad .... but really when are there too many? When they start driving up prices because they are fighting for the same stock and then having to mark it up higher to justify paying the bills vs supporting a hobby that was meant to do nothing but eat their money, the dealers hurt the hobby by pricing out people who collect large numbers of species and traded around the world to get in new stock. Large amounts of dealers are great for people who keep maybe 5 or less and lose interest quick in the hobby. Part of the fun of this for me was that I had to bide my time and wait to collect from either in or outside of my friend circle.
The guy giving slings away cheap ... that does help the hobby a lot ... just doesnt help the dealers bottom line. Few dealers are bringing much new in (im not saying all) ... just buying out hobbyists and reselling their stock marked up. Ever notice how we pass things along and then that gets passed along again through a network of friends? Someone turns a friends excess slings into a breeding project and then they get bought by others wanting to own 1 ... or 10. Im sorry if it hurts the dollar value, but this isnt about dollar value for me. Hate to tell ya this but I still give stuff away to friends on occasion for free. Do you think that hurts serious collectors or the hobby? Please tell us how. Scorpions and tarantulas are not mainstream commodities. This hobby was not about turning a buck when I got here. We loved our bugs and we loved trading them. We made lasting friendships in the process of passing along our joy. There were a few dealers and it balanced itself out. If this doesnt scale back on the profit turning were going to keep slowly going the way of baseball cards. History has a way of repeating itself and you can already see it if youve been here a fair number of years.
love it, at the gymJust like there will always be people who like to get pumped up.