Snowdrop Sales Records

[Alan_b]

I am giving a talk on snowdrops next year and I thought I would try to illustrate how snowdrop prices have risen over the years.  What I have so far is reproduced below.  There is a long gap between 1986 and 2012.  We were shocked in January 2008 when 'Ecusson d'Or' sold for over £100 on eBay http://www.srgc.net/forum/index.php?topic=1246.0 , was this the first time the £100 barrier was broken?
 
c1986:  40 bulbs, which was almost the entire stock, of ‘yellow’ snowdrop ‘Wendy’s Gold’ sold for £1000 to a Dutch bulb company (who subsequently lost them all to disease).   

January 2012: ‘Green Tear’ sold for £360 on eBay

February 2012: ‘Elizabeth Harrison’ sold for £720 on eBay by Ian Christie.  The buyer was Thomson and Morgan.

February 2014:  Snowdrop bulb with rights to choose the name sold on eBay for £1602 by Tom Mitchell.  Subsequently named “Peter Gooding”.

February 2015: ‘Golden Fleece’ sold for £1390 on ebay by Joe Sharman.

August 2017:  ‘Midas’ sold direct by Avon bulbs for £100 per bulb.  They expected to sell 100 bulbs to the UK and 100 to Europe, making £20,000 in the first year of availability.

[Brian Ellis]

The figures you have are really the absolute extremes - something which I am sure will be pointed out.  It is interesting to see that of those available from Ron Mackenzie's The Snowdrop Company in 2006 (the first catalogue I laid my hands on) the cheapest was 'Atkinsii' at £2, the most expensive 'South Hayes at £25 and the average price was just £11.

By 2013 (I don't have his last catalogue unfortunately)  the average had risen to £17.44 with the most expensive costing £60.  He divided the list into cultivars and special cultivars the relative averages being £7.60 and £23.60 - hence our surprise at the prices you quote.

[Brian Ellis]

Whoops I've just realised you meant Record Sale Prices rather than records of snowdrop sales!

[Alan_b]

Thanks for replying with that useful information, Brian; it must have taken quite a bit of work to do those sums.  Of course you are absolutely correct that I am quoting the extremes and this isn't as good as the average price information you have quoted, but both the record sales prices and the averages indicate that prices have risen.

Inspired by your efforts I looked at the current Avon Bulbs Dormant Snowdrops list.  There are 117 named snowdrops and the average price is £32.44.  The cheapest is £9 and there are four priced at £100 to £120.  For posterity I have attached a pdf file of my list.
 Avon Dormant Bulbs 2017.pdf (27.21 kB - downloaded 426 times.)

[Brian Ellis]

Thanks for replying with that useful information, Brian; it must have taken quite a bit of work to do those sums.  Of course you are absolutely correct that I am quoting the extremes and this isn't as good as the average price information you have quoted, but both the record sales prices and the averages indicate that prices have risen.

Inspired by your efforts I looked at the current Avon Bulbs Dormant Snowdrops list.  There are 117 named snowdrops and the average price is £32.44.  The cheapest is £9 and there are four priced at £100 to £120.  For posterity I have attached a pdf file of my list.
(Attachment Link)

No I'm good at sums

It's good to know the current average is reasonable, I still think of £50 - £60 as an expensive snowdrop - but then I can remember farthings!

I think concentrating on the average price is far more helpful to those beginning to take an interest in snowdrops and then adding the ridiculous sums paid on ebay to illustrate how mad it can become! 

[Alan_b]

I think concentrating on the average price is far more helpful to those beginning to take an interest in snowdrops and then adding the ridiculous sums paid on ebay to illustrate how mad it can become!

I agree completely, Brian.  But I used to get most of my snowdrops at sales and meetings and did not subscribe to the catalogues so without your help I would not have had the average price information at my disposal.

[Alan_b]

Inspired by Brian's efforts, I found the 2017 catalogue from North Green Snowdrops online and did the sums.  The average price of the 61 priced snowdrops was £35.55, with prices ranging from £8 to £120.  In addition there were 7 snowdrops for which tenders were invited with an average reserve price of £97.14 (which I have not included in the calculation).

Put together with Brian's data we have:

Year	Average
2006	£11
2011	£17.44
2017	£35.55

This corresponds quite well to a price increase of around 11.2% year-on-year (i.e the average price is always 11.2% greater than whatever it was the previous year).  Or, put another way, the average snowdrop price doubles about every 7 years (based on the 11 year trend from 2006 to 2017).  For context, the UK Consumer Prices Index rose by 30% (from 102.5 to 132.2) between June 2006 and June 2017.

[steve owen]

Alan/Brian
Interesting figures which accord pretty well with my records of Ebay snowdrop sales. Of course, these percentage increases and indeed the prices themselves are not sustainable.
But we have some way to go before we reach the situation described here; At the peak of tulip mania, in February 1637, some single tulip bulbs sold for more than 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftsworker. I suppose 10 times the annual income of a skilled craftworker in 2017 might be a quarter of a million pounds? For a single bulb!
Steve

[Alan_b]

Thank you for your comments, Steve.  You have written before that you monitor eBay prices so I thought you would have some insight.

I would think that there must be between 2 and 10 UK galanthophiles who might pay top eBay prices for a very rare or very novel snowdrop.  Maybe up to 100 who would pay £100 for a really new and desirable snowdrop like Midas.  Perhaps 1000 who are sufficiently interested in snowdrops that they might turn-up to one of the February meetings or sales?  And, as a wild guess, maybe 10,000 who grow at least a few named snowdrop cultivars in their garden?  If I am right then this remains an almost insignificant proportion of the overall UK population.  I have the impression that with Tulip Mania there was much wider involvement in the bubble.

[ashley]

I have the impression that with Tulip Mania there was much wider involvement in the bubble.

At least the tulips tended to be clearly distinct, and stably so, unlike some of the bleeding edge 'drops

[Alan_b]

I made a table of the average snowdrop price in the North Green catalogue (excluding those offered for tender)

Year	Average
2006	£11
2011	£17.44
2017	£35.55

In 2018 the average price (of the 65 snowdrops) is £37.77 .  So still going up, but this year by less than the year-on year average from 2006 to 2017. 

[Graeme]

I am still of the opinion that I would prefer 10,000 snowdrops rather than 1 snowdrop worth £10,000 

[Anthony Hawkins]

I would also find it interesting to look at the price trends of snowdrops which have been widely distributed over the years; such as Atkinsii, S Arnott, Straffan(?), ... I am alas too disorganised to find past catalogues in my house.

[Brian Ellis]

I am still of the opinion that I would prefer 10,000 snowdrops rather than 1 snowdrop worth £10,000 

No snowdrop is worth that let alone a tenth of it!

[Alan_b]

No snowdrop is worth that let alone a tenth of it!

I completely agree, Brian, but is a snowdrop worth even £100?  We have gradually become habituated to the idea that the rarest and best ones are worth over £100 but would we have thought that ten years ago?  In 2011 I formed a consortium to buy a 1/4 share of an 'E.A. Bowles' when it cost £120 and that seemed a huge amount at the time.