|
|
Post by jshuey on Mar 29, 2017 8:53:38 GMT -8
|
|
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Mar 29, 2017 10:08:49 GMT -8
That was a great article. I can't get my wife's lazy a$$ of the couch long enough to collect anything. Got to work on that
|
|
|
|
Post by vabrou on Nov 12, 2017 10:57:25 GMT -8
Sorry, but this story is simply BS with respect to its monetary value. $10,000,000 is foolishness. Just making such a claim is not how the value is determined. Sounds nice, but just news story BS. 1260 drawers can hold 1200 small weevils per drawer, but only when placed shoulder to shoulder, tail to head throughout without any empty spaces throughout. Use of unit trays would then require 5-10 times that many drawers. The whole story is fraught with exaggerations. I consider that I have extensive personal first hand knowledge concerning insect collection donations as I myself have been annually donating huge numbers of high quality and rare species to numerous museums here in the US and across the world since 1971. I have on many occasions appraised good quality insect collections to major museums for other persons, as well. $10,000,000 for 1260 drawers of just birdwing butterflies, but not for weevils, get real.
|
|
|
|
Post by exoticimports on Nov 13, 2017 7:05:10 GMT -8
Vabrou, you may be right, however, a million specimens is impressive, as is a $10m tax write-off.
Chuck
|
|
|
|
Post by vabrou on Nov 13, 2017 8:26:17 GMT -8
Doubtfully, this described collection would actually exceed $1,000,000.00 in appraised value, and that would include the insect specimens, also including the insect pins, the drawers and the cabinets, in total. The owners of this collection appear to have failed to obtain any remuneration benefits of making this donation for their own financial bottom line. Had early on, they donated each and every year, a very small portion of their unneeded or common duplicates starting back, e.g. 5o years ago, they would have been able to deduct each and every year, donations in the amount of up to 50% of their adjusted gross income each and every year on their Federal income taxes, and still additional deductions each and every year, on their state income taxes. Pinned and labeled, even when identified by a taxonomic authority, weevils are in an insect category of the least monetarily valuable insects. Here is a three minute powerpoint illustration of one of the many dozens of annual donations, I have made most every year over the past half century. www.lsuinsects.org/people/vernonbrou/Slideshow2009Brou.ppt |
|
|
|
Post by vabrou on Nov 13, 2017 8:50:07 GMT -8
Chuck, your comment - "a million specimens is impressive, as is a $10m tax write-off." Impressive is a matter of opinion. My personal best (one day) (24 hour period) quantity of collected insects was around 134 million insect specimens. That is about six (5-gallon buckets) volume-wise. Consider, I have operated my hundreds of insect traps for more than the past 17,500 (24 hour periods) (48 years) since 1969. As for the actual value of that weevil and fulgorid collection being valued at $10,000,000.00, that is simply bull###. Re-read my last post. There are, and have been for about 50 years, IRS acceptable methods, formulas, and established values for determining the allowable values of donations of biological materials. I was involved with these appraisal matters going back to the early 1970s and in subsequent years. $1,000,000.00 in value would be a stretch for that weevil and fulgorid collection, even if they are all identified to species. And knowing what I do know about weevils, no doubt only a very, very, small percentage of them are identified to genus, or to species.
|
|
|
|
|
|
Post by exoticimports on Nov 13, 2017 12:20:55 GMT -8
Acceptable appraisal standards I have been told- and practiced- is $4 for a pinned, labeled specimen. At that rate the collection is worth $5million for tax purposes. Since we don't know what all of the other specimens are, it's hard to say what they're worth above the $4 each (most obviously not worth any more than $4) but all the same, figure another half mil for arguement's sake.
1260 drawers at $50 each is $63,000. One would assume they had cabinets, so maybe another $50,000. Throw in books, collecting supplies, call it another $50,000.
OK, so looks like they'd have to come up with something interesting for a few more million.
I'm more impressed with a $10million tax write-off.
|
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Nov 13, 2017 13:39:54 GMT -8
Acceptable appraisal standards I have been told- and practiced- is $4 for a pinned, labeled specimen. At that rate the collection is worth $5million for tax purposes. Since we don't know what all of the other specimens are, it's hard to say what they're worth above the $4 each (most obviously not worth any more than $4) but all the same, figure another half mil for arguement's sake. 1260 drawers at $50 each is $63,000. One would assume they had cabinets, so maybe another $50,000. Throw in books, collecting supplies, call it another $50,000. OK, so looks like they'd have to come up with something interesting for a few more million. I'm more impressed with a $10million tax write-off. In my mind, you just set the base- line appraisal at $5.15M for a collection of "run-of-the-mill" bugs. It's not hard to run the value up from there - again using standard appraisal methods. Three additional factors could significantly up the value. First, Charlie is one of the world experts of Curculionidae. Between him and his network of his network of taxonomic co-workers - figure that most of the bugs have expert determinations to genus and species. For a group like this, add $3-4 per bug IDed by a real authority - say 75% of the collection. (as opposed to IDed by someone like you or me). Using the low value - that adds a clean $3M to the value. Second - the bulk of the collection is exotic. The O'Briens collected globally. Not like us - with an occasional vacation to Bermuda - but a few months per year in remote and portions of planet earth. Add some value for bugs collected from well chosen localities around the globe, especially relative to solving the taxonomic problems in weevils. Say $1 for 80% of the collection. Add $1M Third, assume that some of those bugs are actually worth a couple of bucks - like those shiny weevils from SE Asia. Say that their worth $25 buck each and that 10% of the collection was thus. Add 3.125M. It doesn't take a strong imagination to see how the collection starts gaining a value that approaches or exceeds $10M. I've done a few appraisals over the years. Using generally accepted values such as those above, my most recent appraisal could have come in at over $1M, but we stepped it back to about half that to remain conservative in the eyes of IRS. JOhn |
|
|
|
Post by africaone on Nov 13, 2017 13:41:28 GMT -8
collection of beetles labelled and set (like paleartic ceramby) is less than 1 € piece for big quantity (somme collection of ceramby are negociated around 0.5 e) I know at least two collections (of Charaxes and Saturniidae, around 10 000 specimens) negociated less than 10 $ piece containing series of the most valuable species known. then 4 $ is something incredible for weevils  at this price there are some millionnaires in collectors ! |
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Nov 13, 2017 13:55:12 GMT -8
Indeed, I've often wondered at eBay prices what my haul is worth, I've joked with a friend that we are easily eBay millionaires, not that I'm selling. My son and I once tried to value it all putting way below average prices on everything but got bored after 3 days and gave up.
|
|
|
|
Post by jshuey on Nov 13, 2017 14:36:03 GMT -8
collection of beetles labelled and set (like paleartic ceramby) is less than 1 € piece for big quantity (somme collection of ceramby are negociated around 0.5 e) I know at least two collections (of Charaxes and Saturniidae, around 10 000 specimens) negociated less than 10 $ piece containing series of the most valuable species known. then 4 $ is something incredible for weevils at this price there are some millionnaires in collectors ! First - I'm not saying that I would have appraised such a collection for $10m. But the first job of an appraiser is to lay out the process for determining value. Without knowing the actual collection, I'm pretty sure that I could build preliminary case that you - the reader of the appraisal, could work through to hit a value in the $10M range within minutes. From there I'd build out the assumptions and market forces that actually determine value for the specific collection - and in the process pull that value back in a bit to insure that it could withstand scrutiny. But I think that there is some confusion with "bugs you buy from dealers" and bugs that are part of rigorous systematic collection. In the first case - the values get discounted by volume. In other words, the more specimens, the lower the value per specimen. Collections amassed from such dealers are indeed, low value, comprised of mostly common trash species from commonly collected localities. Data of such purchased collections are always suspect. In the case of the collection in question, it's actually the size of the collection that makes the individual specimens valuable. There are over 60,000 species of weevils in the world - this collection likely includes a significant number of these species (perhaps 40-50% of the known species - many undescribed species as well), determined by real taxonomic authorities from across the globe. Certainly this collection includes numerous paratypes of many species described by many workers - perhaps a few thousand paratypes. I spent a couple of weeks in the field with the O'Briens, and I know the quality of their data is beyond reproach. At this scale, more specimens equates to increased value, as the collection has increased scientific value. The specimens in the collection are identified by world authorities - the people doing the revisions and describing new species. The IDs are a solid as you can get. The data from a large collection is "distributionally rich" such that long series of those expertly IDed weevils can be used to see real species ranges. The collection is taxonomically and geographically broad - with many of the sampling trips designed to specifically address biogeographic questions in the family. So, if you have a 1.25M specimen collection from one state - with really long series of the few species that occur regionally, don't expect to see your value per specimen go up with size. If you purchased a million weevils from southeast Asian dealers, don't expect top get your money back. But if you constantly travel the globe, ultimately building an insect collection that rivals the best institutional collections in the world - expect to see some value. (and if you try and actually sell your $10M collection - don't expect to get much money for it). But from a tax perspective - you can easily assign a defendable value that may seem too many people to be outrageous. Indeed - there are some "million-dollar collections" out there. But they are not the ones you might suspect have the value based on what the collectors paid for them. It's the focused collections that represent a life-time of work in obscure localities that are likely kick butt. But is that really your goal in collecting? Just my thoughts.... John |
|
|
|
Post by Chris Grinter on Nov 13, 2017 15:33:53 GMT -8
Doubtfully, this described collection would actually exceed $1,000,000.00 in appraised value, and that would include the insect specimens, also including the insect pins, the drawers and the cabinets, in total. The owners of this collection appear to have failed to obtain any remuneration benefits of making this donation for their own financial bottom line. Had early on, they donated each and every year, a very small portion of their unneeded or common duplicates starting back, e.g. 5o years ago, they would have been able to deduct each and every year, donations in the amount of up to 50% of their adjusted gross income each and every year on their Federal income taxes, and still additional deductions each and every year, on their state income taxes. Pinned and labeled, even when identified by a taxonomic authority, weevils are in an insect category of the least monetarily valuable insects. Here is a three minute powerpoint illustration of one of the many dozens of annual donations, I have made most every year over the past half century. www.lsuinsects.org/people/vernonbrou/Slideshow2009Brou.ppt They have been donating tens of thousands of specimens every year, mostly here to the California Academy of Sciences. |
|
|
|
Post by vabrou on Nov 13, 2017 16:10:13 GMT -8
Seems as though despite speaking from actual experience and factual information, I have been rebuffed by ridiculous and totally unsubstantiated statements based upon perceived foolishness pulled from thin air, taken from your responses. You cant prove any of these statements that you two wanna-be experts have provided.
"standards I have been told" and
"In my mind" and
"Say that their worth $25 buck each and that 10% of the collection was thus" and
"For a group like this, add $3-4 per bug IDed by a real authority - say 75% of the collection"
"figure that most of the bugs have expert determinations to genus and species. For a group like this, add $3-4 per bug IDed by a real authority - say 75% of the collection.
"the bulk of the collection is exotic" -- How much exactly is 'the bulk'? Appraisal are not made using terms as 'the bulk'
"Say that their worth $25 buck each and that 10% of the collection was thus. Add 3.125M." Appraisers do not 'say' or guesstimate based without legitimate proofs according to what they may think.
This is a partial guide to estimate fair market value for arthropod specimens. Actual detailed appraisal criteria is intentionally not provided in this example by me.
Insect collection appraisals are based upon factors such as:
Number of SPECIMENS UNMOUNTED dry (with collection data)
Number of SPECIMENS MOUNTED by accepted method for order (otherwise unmounted)
Add additional LABELING factors for
museum quality labels used with specimens
in ENVELOPE (Plastic or glassine for Odonata)
on POINT or MINUTEN mounted
in ALCOHOL (small orders, immatures, etc., in xx% alcohol)
or PINNED
SLIDES (thrips, scales, mites, etc.)
Number of labeled Envelopes
Number of labeled Slides
add additional factors which apply.
EXOTIC
Number of labeled Pins (include point and minuten mounts)
Number of labeled VIALS
or SPREAD (Lepidoptera, Neuroptera, etc.; not desirable for most orders)
or ACETONE PRESERVED (Odonata only)
Number with SIGNIFICANT biological, host or habitat data
or SLIDE mounted
MATING PAIRS or IN COPULA
MICROVIALS or acceptable dry mounting
Number DISSECTED (e.g. Genitalia, etc.)
BULK SAMPLES (e.g. flight traps, light traps) DOMESTIC
BULK SAMPLES (e.g. flight traps, light traps) EXOTIC
Identfied by Authority to GENUS only
Identfied by Authority to GENUS and SPECIES
HOLOTYPES
LECTOTYPES
NEOTYPES
TERTIARY TYPES (topotype, homeotype, metatype, etc.)
ALLOTYPES
PARATYPES
Special taxa (uncommon, extinct, gynandromorph, etc.)*
Cabinets, Drawers, other Storage Boxes with donation*
Overall adjustment to the entire donated quantity (0-25% added or subtracted by curator, depending on condition of material)
The donor may accept or reject the estimate but is responsible for claiming any value stated or otherwise, and may be required to independently prove such claims based upon the actual and verifiable cost of obtaining the donated material. Other considerations include special taxa, cabinets, documented actual market value, fossil specimens, historically important specimens, etc.
This is just a brief and partial explanation, of just a portion of what is involved in the appraisal of biological materials. I don't intend to furnish $$ values for these various factors for wanna-bees to plagiarize here. I only furnished some factual criteria in my response here, so the 'expurts' here will see how foolish their unsubstantiated comments actually are.
|
|
leptraps
Banned
Enter your message here...
Posts: 2,397
|
Post by leptraps on Nov 13, 2017 17:44:42 GMT -8
Now here is a guy who knows how to loose friends and make enemies.
Just read his post, he is always right, knows just about everything about anything and when a well respected Lepidopterist like John Shuey responds and politely explains his views, which happen to differ from his, wheeeewwwww, the bad moon rising and run for cover.
I once knew a guy just like him in NE Ohio, knew everything about everything. Someone offended him once and he blurted out, "when I die, you will come piss on my grave. The other looked at him and said, and I quote, "Since I got out of the Army, I do not stand in line for anything." and as I said, I quote!!
The response should be a beauty!!!! And that is what the delete button is for!!!!
|
|
|
|
Post by africaone on Nov 13, 2017 23:33:30 GMT -8
Anyway the price is done by the market. You can evaluate the collection as you want, the market will decide (no buyers, no value).
Scientific collections are less priced than commercial ones. And more specimens there are, more the price will decrease.
You can't evaluate a collection by making the sum of individual values.
In the case of big collection, you have to add some costs for the buyers as it is rarely a private that buy such collection, and the salaries to care the collection is costly as the place needed to keep the collection.
A Museum will buy a collection as a whole and will count the number of red labels.
A dealer will count the money he can do by saling piece by piece a low percentage of the whole.
A collector will buy a collection regarding what it can bring to his own collection and will rarely buy a "big collection". Sometimes a collector will make a deal with an insectdealer (pricy things for the dealer and the rest for the collector).
If two buyers want the same things, of course the saler will find a good price.
you also can not underestimate how successors value a collection. There is a psychologic impact with some successors that estimate that the collector used his money for nothing valuable or used the money and time without caring properly his family (a kind of revenge).
I recently seen the sale of 3 very big collections of "valuable" insect (Saturniidae, charaxes and sphingidae) and the prices were very very far from the total sum of individual values.
Dear colleagues, be careful if you think that your family will care you collection after you passing. A few have the chance to have kids continuing their passion, but for others, do make (negociate) the necessary before your passing.
|
|
