TOPIC: Update on ginseng prices?

TO ALL THE PEOPLE WHO DONT LIKE THE PRICE ,LOOK TO THE LEFT OF THIS PAGE (GINSENG DEALERS) LIST AND MAKE CALLS TO FIND THE PRICE YOU WANT OR SEE IF YOU CAN (DO THE WORK) AND MYBE YOU CAN FIND A PRICE YOU ARE HAPPY WITH IM ALSO A DIGGER AND DEALER AND TRUST ME ITS TOUGH BUT THIS IS WHAT WE ALL SAY WE ENJOY SO MAKE THE BEST OF IT MAKE SURE YOUR ROOTS ARE THE BEST THEY CAN BE AND MYBE YOU CAN GET THE BEST PRICE THE MORE INFO YOU CAN GET THE BETTER YOU WILL KNOW WHAT IS GOING ON (MAKE PHONE CALLS)AND A LOT OF THEM (MAKE MORE PHONE CALLS) THEN YOU WILL KNOW WHAT IS REAL OR NOT AND WHEN YOU HAVE DONE THAT I BET YOU WILL UNDERSTAND WHAT IS GOING ON GOOD AND BAD I HOPE WE ALL DO GOOD AND ARE HAPPY AFTER THIS YR IS OVER IM NOT TALKING BAD IN ANYWAY I MYSELF HAVE LEARNED ALOT THIS YR MYSELF AND MY BEST DEFENCE IS INFO AND A LOT OF IT IM ON THE PHONE SEVERAL HOURS A WEEK TO SEE WHAT IS GOING ON AND I WOULD SUUGEST YOU TO IF YOU WANT THE BEST PRICE OUT THERE THEY ARE GOOD HONEST PEOPLE ON BOTH SIDES OF THIS BUT LIKE EVERYTHING THEY ARE SOME BAD APPLES SO GOOD LUCK TO ALL I HAVE SOME PHONE CALLS TO MAKE P,S DONT GET MAD WHEN YOU HERE SOMETHING YOU DONT LIKE JUST CALL SOME ONE ELSE THIS DEALER TO DAY MAY PAY TOP PRICE NEXT TIME SO IF IT MAKES YOU MAD KEEP IT TO YOUR SELF AND CALL SOME ONE ELSE THIS IS A SMALL WORLD OUT HERE AND PEOPLE TALK GOOD OR BAD OF YOU SO DONT LET GETTING PISSED OFF THIS YR HURT YOU NEXT YR GOOD LUCK ALL

ya I used to do all that calling around.still do a little ..you hear all the if's and 's and why's about the MARKET..about ten years ago I quit that nonsense..before you dig that first root of the year..have your mind made up ..I'm not going to take a dime less than this x amount of money for it..you will save your self a lot of time and money[long distance calls]and frustration...I agree that more GOOD IMFO is great ..but if your getting your imfo from someone who is trying to make the most money off of you as they can,how can you rely on some of the imfo you are told.....see about 5 years ago the biggest fur auction house in north america had all these fur dealers from around the world at their auctions.at night the dealers would get together and go through the catalog decide who would bid what on what lot of fur.there by manipulating the price.3 years ago they then went to an Internet auction[buyers could bid on line live] as well as the live auction.guess what fur over all went up 15% across the board.now if we could do this with the root you could eliminate some of these middle man dealers..you could then deal direct with the high up buyers where the greatest demand is [most money paid].....see they have tip their hands last year..when demand is high and supply is low ,they ARE willing to give 700 to 800 pound.so if I have to keep it till one of those years when supply is down and demand is up so be it.say like this year a guy is sitting on 10 pounds,cant get his price for what ever reason.and next year you dig 5 more pounds..then it go's way up for what ever reason.it was well worth hanging on to..in 2 or three years you could accumulate quite a sack full of pounds of root..I made my mind up last year i would never sell another pound for less than 500 a pound ever,cause I know if you just hang on the market will come to you..now I'm not saying 500 is my target price for this year..it's higher than that.good luck to all.

well said chief.

I'm here in East Tennessee, and I called 3 dealers that are close by to me this morning.
warner Hurb located in crossville was at 408
Randy Henrey located in Wartberg was at 425
And Hawkins located in Lake City was at 425

Mr. Hawkins told me that it was going to do all it was going to do by the end of this week. Now tell me how in the world dose he know this? I'm really starting to think mind games are being played now.

So is anyone convinced that when the supply of ginseng is up that the price in the asian market goes down? I don't really think so...They are still selling our seng for these high prices. They are just paying us less because there are so many people that just say it's only worth what someone will give you today.....so I might as well sell it for an incredibly low price...As long as there are enough people that will sell at low prices, the price will never go up.....Now if what B_castle is telling us is true...Which I'm sure he wouldn't steer us wrong...He is making somewhere in the neighboorhood of $20-$30 per pound....Reguardless of what the price is....So if the price is 250 he sells for, lets say 275 and makes 25 a pound...fair enough...if the price is 500...he sells for 525 makes 25 a pound...fair enough...so what I am getting at is the dealer is going to make the same reguardless of the overall price..I think the problem here is not the lower level dealers we sell to.I think it is starting at the exporters,and more than likely the price spike happens when it's imported into asia.It's up to us diggers to put our feet down and not sell till we get to our target prices.

Great points everyone!!!
I hope for all our sake it sells higher and higher every year. I am a digger and small time planter. I hope it's near $1,000 a lb again when I am ready to sell in 10 years. However, what I dig cost me time and fun. If I sell at $500 and it goes to $650 I am not out nothing but time and the fact I sold it too low. So I haven't truly lost anything since it didn't cost me anything but time. Yes time is worth money but seng hunting is fun to me so I do not see it that way totally but I understand that many would disagree.

I can't imagine putting hundreds or thousands at risk as local buyers do. Hats off to the local buyers for accepting this challenge. Without the local buyers we would be in a difficult situation for sure. So thank you to all the local buyers who are taking these risk to provide us with an outlet to sell our roots.

It is amazing to me what the Chinese end consumer ends up paying in the end. It is usually 4 to 5 times what we sell it for.

It would be great if all the diggers were to hold onto their roots to sell directly. Can you imagine the amount of money the diggers would get per lb.
Unfortunately many are not in the position to hold onto their roots like many on here are able to do.
I respect the right of some to have stated that they will sit on their roots or eat them themselves before they sell for a price lower than what they think is a fair price.

I do not know how to unify all or if it can even be done. In a perfect world we would all hold till we got a price that we think it is worth. But this is virtually impossible at this point and it is going to take someone a lot smarter than me to figure it out.

Until then I think we can all agree to do what makes sense for each of us on an individual basis.
Good luck everyone!!!!
Latt

Just had a very rude buyer tell me that $420 was the best he would do this year...He isn't going to go up any more at all....Very rude fellow also....Looks like if I can't get ahold of goodman and sons....That jefferson county is out for the year..Unless someone else is on the list for jefferson county that I overlooked, I only saw two....Oh well it's a big market with lots of buyers.....

BCastle wrote:

The last thing any of us need is the feds making new rules to restrict the sale of roots from one year into the next to make the record keeping more accurate. They appear to be looking closely at regulating wild sim as it is.[/quote]


not to be insulting to you bcastle by no means but when liquor had the restrictions put on it a fifth went from $2.00 up to $11.00 on average quality. but the fact of the matter is calling people out only hurts us all!!!!!!!!!! Every body take a breath and start over, if we fight amongst ourselves prices will never go up the aisians win.... you know im sitting on a holy heck of a pile me and my buddies have collected but i still dont think its time to sell. there was a surplus but there is also a price and demand increase so just be patient not angry. prices will go up if not this year, there is always next...

Mutt33,
I think you may have misunderstood what Brad said. He said \"The LAST thing any of us need\". So he is against any new rules or restrictions if I understand correctly.
Latt

I agree, we as responsible diggers and wild sim growers do not need any more restrictions to make our hobby and farming venture more cumbersome.... now these irresponsible diggers need all that can be throwed at em. The worst type of digger I know of in this area is the loggers. They know when they finish logging the farm that they will never be back and it doesnt matter if its April or May when they see it there, its dug regardless.Can you imagine spending weeks at a time on the same hillside lookin for seng..... you could definately wipe it out if you wanted.

On the matter of dealers. They are in it for the same reason we are to sell it .... other than we get the enjoyment of the hunt. If a dealer wants to pay 400 to turn around and sell it for 450, I think that is fair enough. That is only a 12.5% mark up and any thing else you would go out and buy has been traded at 30%. In my opinion its worth it. I do know of some dealers that try the larger profit margins but they are losing business fast.

Hillhopper