tennesseethomas... I also want to welcome you to the forums and hope that you will stay and share many stories, photos and/or videos with us!
I have also seen a fairly large spread in Dealer pricing around here. One wonders if it is either due to personal greed or from ignorance (not keeping up with market trends) but is probably a little bit of both. While the pricing should be generally based on size, quality and condition, I have seen Ads on Craigslist where some Dealers are paying you more if you have more (i.e. they pay you less per pound if you only have a pound or less but significantly jump the price up if you have 3 pounds or more). This game won't work with me as Ginseng is a commodity just like Gold or Silver! If I have decent sized, guality roots that are in great condition, then if the base price (per pound) is broken down to pricing per ounce, then they should pay me the same for my' Ginseng roots based on the base price per pound, no matter if I only have 5 ounces or I have 50 ounces or 100 ounces or more of Ginseng roots. Besides, at the end of the buying day, they (the Dealers) pretty much lump all similar sized and quality roots together in one container, so it should not matter how much I have to sell (a little or a lot). It is just a gimmick that never has and never will work on me and for one (a Dealer) to try it on me, they will only see my' a%$ as I walk away!
Due to my' back problems and lack of locations to hunt, I very seldom ever have over a pound of dry Ginseng roots to sell. Should this make my' roots less valuable (per ounce) than the 5 or 10 pounds of roots that someone else brings in? No it does not and especially if they are similar sized, quality and condition!
Frank