Insane prices
mvJohn's thread, "worth paying such price" got me thinking two different directions. In fact, I wondered if he was going the second, but his question went instead the first direction, namely were the plants he was considering being offered at a fair price. The fair price of an orchid is a pretty fluid thing. I grow my 100+ orchids as a rank amateur with the intention of keeping them alive, getting them to bloom, and taking their pictures. For my purposes, a generic Phal species (as an example) is just as good as a highly crossed, selected, special plant of the same species but which sells for ten times the generic plant. However, others have differing interests and so to them the more expensive plant better fits theirs.
The other direction the question took me was simply nutty prices. We've seen some on eBay and other places, though sometimes there's a reason for the extraordinary price. Way back in the early 1980's I remember reading an article, I believe in National Geographic, about an orchid expedition into a South American jungle. As I recall, they hoped to locate a species some thought was extinct, both to prove it wasn't and also if it wasn't to collect specimens to preserve the species. They found it and returned with several plants. The guy who went after them got to keep one, and The Smithsonian (I think) got a couple. They sold two larger specimens for $20,000 each, and a third, smaller one for $10K. Now in a case like this I can understand the absurd price (those were 1980 dollars, not 2017 dollars), but I admit questioning some plant prices I see being asked.
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