Thread: What is your favorite handle?

Originally Posted by Jimbo

Ahh, so young and so naive. Well, I have finally worked out that I dislike wood, stable or unstable, for scales. But I do prefer endangered natural materials - ivory or bone etc. The more endangered the species, the better.

James.

How about extinct? does it rank highly or not at all?

Originally Posted by hoglahoo

How about extinct? does it rank highly or not at all?

Well, given that extinct is just endangerment taken to its extreme end point, I'd have to say yes, extinct is great.

The problem with extinct, though, is that you miss all the exciting peaks and dips that come with endangered: White Rhino ivory scale prices vary wildly on the scale stock market depending on whether that month's captive breeding programme was successful or not, and the speculators move in to drive the price higher or lower accordingly.

And then of course there are the bad scale speculation loans. These display a lot of volatility. The worst case I can recall in recent history was the Amur Tiger femur scales debarkle. Back in the 1940s there were only about 40 individuals left alive on the planet, and femur scales were topping 20000USD a pair. Then the bloody tree-hugging hippies moved in and brought it back from the brink, the bottom fell out of the market, and many people's retirement funds went down the chute because of it. If someone had bothered to do a proper cost/benefit analysis they would have realised that keeping them on the brink of extinction indefinitely would have been the only logical course of economic action. But as we all know, people can be short-sighted sometimes.



James.