[leps-talk] Fwd: value

[Michael Gochfeld]

Chris, sorry to belabor this point but....

Last year I had the opportunity to visit a spectacular gun and knife
show in Albuquerque.  Anyone who hasn't had that experience should take
the opportunity (except some states have banned the shows).  If you're
not from New Jersey you can easily buy an exquisite 50 cal,, but that is
besides the point. 

There were two booths there that had exquisitely mounted butterflies and
beetles in the $35 to $1000 dollar range.  They were real gems, and
although most people were there to buy or sell arms and ordnance (and
books about how to get your criminal record expunged), the
butterfly/beetle trade seemed lively indeed. 


Mike Gochfeld

"Chris J. Durden" wrote:
> 
> If butterfly specimens are so darned valuable where are the swap-meets? You
> would think they would be as ubiquitous as gun an knife shows.
> Give us a break!
> .................Chris Durden
> 
> >>________________________________________________________________________
> >>Message: 4
> >>Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 07:52:07 -0700
> >>From: Paul Cherubini <monarch at saber.net>
> >>Subject: Re: Commercial value of butterflies
> >>Michael Gochfeld wrote:
> >> > It's not an underground at all. There is a whole list serve
> >> > devoted to the sale and purchase of specimens (both live and dead).
> >> > It's the commercial aspect of butterfly specimens that worries
> >> > conservationists (birders and butterfliers don't buy and trade
> >> specimens).
> >> > Not many species command hundreds of dollars,
> >>Mike, an article in Outside Magazine hints at an underground
> >>industry where big dollars are paid for perfect rare / endangered
> >>butterflies and moths:
> >>http://www.outsidemag.com/magazine/0196/9601is.html
> >>"Although their case is the most prominent, Kral, Skalski, and
> >>Grinnell are not the only collectors to have run afoul of the Fish &
> >>Wildlife Service. Last July a commercial dealer named Charles
> >>Kondor was sentenced to five months in prison in Wisconsin.
> >>The indictment that same month of a collector in Texas, John
> >>William Kemner, who specialized in Mexican butterflies, is
> >>rumored to implicate some of the most important museums in
> >>the country, from the Smithsonian on down. Butterfly poaching
> >>and smuggling cases have been investigated independently in
> >>Britain, India, and China, where a pair of alpine silks was
> >>reportedly sold on the Japanese market for $37,000."
> >>I just wanted to know whether or not the motivation for
> >>the collecting and breeding of rare species in the Skalski-Kral-Grinnel
> >>case was to make money via underground trading or
> >>the motivation was simply to accumulate the worlds finest
> >>collection of rare butterflies (with the recently passed Fish &
> >>Wildlife endangered species laws getting in the way from time to time)
> >>Paul Cherubini
> 
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