Re: Did Chinese chevrons kill the trade bead collectibles?
Re: Did Chinese chevrons kill the trade bead collectibles? -- beadiste Post Reply Edit Forum Where am I?
Posted by: beadstore.com Mail author
04/02/2015, 11:27:27

So I've been wondering about the drop in Chevron prices for a while now. I'm a sort-of economist in the non-bead world, so I can't help but suspect that it's just a matter of supply and demand.

On the demand side, these are clearly sought after beads. But I wonder if the universe of people interested in acquiring chevrons overlaps with the universe of people who already have at least a base-set of chevrons. Thus, the size of the addressable market of people who want to add to their chevron collection is actually relatively small (I'd probably put myself in this camp).

At the same time, it seems like the supply of nice chevrons seems relatively high. My (admittedly anecdotal) sense is that there are just a lot of chevrons on the market right now. Two decades ago, we just didn't see them all that often. But now, I see more chevrons than I do any other "rare" African trade beads. I mean, walking around in Tucson, you'd think seven layers are being grown on trees! I can't tell if it's existing collectors simply trying to monetize their collections, or if there are actually an increasing number of chevrons coming out of Africa.

Of course, these things are ultimately somewhat cyclical, and I fully expect that as prices fall, the supply will also fall, and we'll all be kicking ourselves for not picking up those beautiful beads at a bargain-basement price!



© Copyright 2015 Bead Collector Network and its users