Rice's catalog for buying shells, Only my own view

Hi to all,
l want to say a few words about the Catalogue of Dealers' Prices by Tom Rice.

This catalog appers popular among collectors.

But l can't understand why! The catalogue doesn't help buying shells. lt has a lot of different errors and many species are missing. The pricing structure appears either way too high or too low.

This' my own view on that catalogue. What has been your experience?

This post moved here from another forum so same subject matter will appear together.

May 1 2006, 12:02 PM, member decaljra wrote:

Rices prices seem to be very high. In fact, I have purchased beautiful shells, not doctored up, on ebay for 1/3 and 1/4 of Rices prices. Now I am considering buying a whole collection, and would like some advise and counsel on how to price it so if I have to sell it in 10 years, I will not get hurt. Any rule of thumb some of you use? I seem to win a majority of bids for lower prices shells at 1/3 Rices Prices. Thank you for your help,
John

Concerning this publication,

I recently picked up a fresh copy at the Space Coast shell festival. I have several older ones from some time ago that I have used for reference.

In terms of reference, the book is actually quite useful in determining if species are common or not...this is especially true for specimens that belong to families that would be on a lower collecting tier, apart from say cowries and cones, not that those lower collecting tiers are any LESS important. ( I think I said that right)

for example....if I were collecting in some spot in florida and I found a nice cerithium muscarum.....and I wanted to know how much it was worth and if it was common or not, without already knowing, i coul dlook it up and see that it would sell for about say a dollar. Common sense tells me that it is not rare since it's a dollar and I know how much someone MAY pay for a very nice specimen, who perhaps lives overseas and cannot collect in Florida readily.

I dont know if any of this makes any sense to those who read this post, but it does to me.

The book does have drawbacks....for example, I'm fairly certain most of the pricing structure is done at mark up, for what a dealer would charge for a specimen. Sites like eBay and the numerous shell auctions, I dont think those should count as "dealers" because they are made up of numerous people who form the one site. There are also some nomenclature mistakes and occasionally(sp) some spelling ones, to which there are probably some typos in this very post. When it's one person doing the entire book, you expect that and think nothing of it.

I've always considered auctions to have pricing lower than most dealers....part of this is because there are numerous sources who compete with each other on one site and thus have to offer good prices.

A dealer who owns a showroom can only cater to who they can attract thru the door, whereas someone online may be able to cater to thousands of potential customers merely by posting a picture with some words. If they can do both, then more power to them, it's actually what I'd like to do someday myself.

While I love a good auction and pick up probably 60 % of my specimens from online, I still am partial to the dealer who has a shop or garage or showroom to where i can pick up and touch the items I am interested in. There are always times when a shell online looks great until you turn it over to find that big growth line that was casually left out of the description!

Sincerely, Lyle

WHERE DO I ORDER A COPY OF DEALER'S PRICES BY TOM RICE?

This post has been edited by amy on Mar 15 2007, 07:51 PM

The following link was working as of Jan 16, 2008:

http://www.ofseaandshore.com/main.php

You can write Tom at:

Tom Rice
P.O. Box 219
Port Gamble, WA 98364.

Amy you can try to contact Bob Janowsky, of Mal De Mer Enterprises. He usually keeps these guides in stock for ( I think) $25.00

If you need his email or website URL, let me know.

Lyle

Hello Folks, I'm trying to sell a 350 shell collection and would be very grateful if someone could tell me where to get a copy of a shell price list that would cover most indopacific shells. Even if it's someones outdated copy from last year that they would mail to me I'd be happy to send off a couple of $ for it.
Any thoughts?
David
Olympia WA