Most expensive butterfly in the world

[thanos]

Obviously he was meaning that the 1500 usd in 1960, is like we say 30.000 usd today -and not that O.rothschildi is offered today for 30.000 .
Of course this species is very cheap today and oftenly offered and I've got recently A1 pair even for less than 20 usd. But I know,too,that the first ever offered pairs years ago were very expensive.

[Deleted]

wonder how much bhutanitis ludlowi will fetch on the market now it has been rediscovered?

[thanos]

I guess some thousands of dollars . Let's hope one day it will be offered also on ebay for much lower price -only then I will buy one .

[Deleted]

I bet the Japanese get them first, before us. I have lidderdali from Thailand but I dont hold much hope out for ever owning ludlowi.

[africaone]

papilio elephenor AI female $100,000+

John, Can we assume that t is an estimate for the female ? ... or is it real ?

[panzerman]

The female elephenor was reportly sold in for a figure over $100,000US!
It was sold in Japan. Thats a lot of $, but when you compare that with other collectibles sold at auctions, like Marilyn Monroes bra for $250,000US, I d rather have the AI+ female elephenor, but then...if I had that kind of dough, I would much rather spend $100K on an FDC perfect Austria 10 dukat gold coin of Emperor Leopold 1690 that sold for 75K EUROS at auction. I prefer my coin collection to bugs any day

John

Now that elephenor has been rediscovered, maybe it will be a repeat of the ornithoptera rothschildi bubble, hopefully that will happen, then I can get this sp., which is still missing in my coll.

[africaone]

it is a similar as Dendezia renieri (despite not considered as extinct). A few years ago a male A2 quality was proposed for 75000 €. Now the price decreased at a quite normal price for a such bug.

[Deleted]

"A three inch Stag Beetle sold for $89,000. A Japanese breeder sold it to an insect shop in Japan.

Stag Beetles go for so much because they are considered a collectors item in some parts of the world. This beetle was particularly long in length, which is why the price was so high."

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[lordpandarus]

Well some people truly have money to waste.

[africaone]

it seems also that there more money avalable in beetles than in lepido (in the top prices I known, most of them are beetles and few butterflies .... and quite none in moths)

[Deleted]

when it comes to buying specimens in the real world most normal people have a "ceiling", a limit to which they will go in order to secure that long awaited prize, things like papilio elphenor and the like have and always will be for the super rich who have that kind of money to spend on a hobby, most other people like myself if they want something rare have to save up and sacrifice things that other people spend their money on in order to have them in our collection, the people who can spend silly amounts are either super rich or very much in debt. Recently I won a female teinopalpus aureus on ebay, the kind man who was selling them gave me a mint male free, therefore I got an almost A1 pair of this wonderful species for the very modest sum of £100 but these occurances are few and far between.

[lordpandarus]

There's less than 20 butterfly species I still want but can't afford. Stuff like Charaxes fournierae, Kallima jacksoni, Prepona werneri... I don't really collect Ornithoptera, Agrias or rare Papilio forms or sub-species.

Most of the other ones I got for less than 100$