Prize Valuation

["James Purchase" <jpurch@interlog.com>]

I understand what you are saying about the estimates of the value of the
individual prizes Erik. The values I used generally came from the
manufacturers themselves, as in the case of the Air Products regulator -
when I was discussing it with the AP representative I was getting Canadian
pricing for their regulators for myself as well as trying to pin a US dollar
value on the one they were donating. The $175.00 figure is what they
actually sell the regulator for in the U.S. In _my_ opinion, their equipment
is worth what they charge for it.

In some cases (like the 72 Bow Front Aquarium), I got the value from this
list (someone priced it in a U.S. store and told me how much it was selling
for), or I went to a mail order dealer (Pet Warehouse) and checked their
regular selling price for the item. In the case of the Ice Cap ballast, they
sell a number of different models, and they can vary in price from $175.00 -
$200.00. I used the upper range value for my calculations.

In the case of the Mail Order Pet Supplies gift certificate (which is in
Canadian funds), I merely plugged the $100.00 Cdn. into the Bank of Canada's
exchange rate converter and came up with a value of $68.00 US. The same
thing for the value of the Practical Fishkeeping gift subscription - I used
their rate for overseas subscribers.

I _know_ that some of the valuations might seem high, but none of them are
over the top (again, in _my_ opinion).

There _are_ a few items which I wish we hadn't received (I've no intention
of stating publicly which they are) but beggars can't be choosers and I did
a lot of begging to get what we've got. I'm thankful to each and every
company which decided to donate and I don't really relate the level of my
gratefullness with the dollar value of their donation. I was asked by
several of the smaller vendors what an appropriate value of a donation might
be, and in each case I told them that I wasn't asking for any specific
minimum or maximum - I would accept with thanks whatever they offered. They
gave what they figured they could afford and that's enough for me.

Perhaps if we do this again next year we can "suggest" to the different
companies the minimum values of the donations we would like to receive but
this would be really pushing things, IMO, and I'd rather just take what they
give us.

None of this is going to prevent somebody  from shouting - "Hey, I can get
that for $xxx.xx on sale at xxxxxxx - your "pricing" is over-inflated!".
They had just better careful to do their griping out of earshot of me. As
the saying goes - "I'm in no mood!".

I guess the bottom line is that people are going to bitch regardless of what
I/we do or how we approach this. Should anyone complain - give them my name
and e-mail address and I'll suggest that next year, THEY might want to get
involved with us and go hunting for prizes themselves. I had to have SOME
value to use as an estimate and I'm sticking with the ones I used.

Given the huge amount of time and effort that you, David Youngker and I have
and will be putting into this, not to mention the contributions of the other
active members of the committee in the planning, translation, publication
and judging of this event - if anyone on the APD or in USENET gets too vocal
as nay-sayers, I'm liable to take their heads off.

But that's just me.....<g>.

James Purchase

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