Why locality is most of the value

Of everything about a specimen, the one that moves the price furthest is a fact about paper rather than about stone.

The same stone, two prices

Two visually identical specimens, one labeled to a named mine and one labeled to a state, are not the same product.

The gap is not a grading gap. It is the difference between a specimen that can be placed in a collection, compared with others and studied, and one that can only be looked at.

What a classic locality means

A locality that produced exceptional material, usually in a limited period, often now closed.

The supply is fixed. Nothing more is coming out, so every specimen from it is from a finite set and the set only shrinks.

It also carries history: material from a famous pocket has been collected, published and traded, and that record is part of what a buyer is paying for.

Which is why provenance and locality compound. A specimen from a classic locality with a documented collection history is worth more than the same specimen with neither.

Why it is fragile

Because it is a claim, carried on paper, about an event nobody witnessed.

Attributions drift. Material gets relabeled to a more valuable locality, deliberately or by honest error, and once it is in circulation it is very hard to correct.

Which is why "as received" and "unverified" are respected qualifiers rather than admissions of weakness, and why a dealer who uses them is worth more of your trust than one who never does.

The collector consequence

Document your own material to the standard you want when you buy.

Pay for documentation rather than only for appearance, because the undocumented specimen you buy cheaply is the one you will sell cheaply.

And when you find material yourself, the ten seconds with a notebook is the difference between a specimen and a rock, for as long as the specimen exists.

References