Maple for sale - price check

leatherback

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Hi All,

I am in a position to purchase a maple in an open auction. I was wondering what you would put the value at. I realize, this is hard and country/person dependant. but.. Would you try to get this?

I have been looking for material to start a large (3fm diameter) clumb style maple. I realize that I am just looking for a wide base, and will have to reduce this to stumps of a few inches per trunk. The visible base here is about 6 inches wide.

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rockm

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It has some potential. Would be interesting to see where the lateral roots start on that base. It they dive down and there are no surface roots, it's a problem. It they start at soil level and spread a bit that's good.
 

eb84327

Mame
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unique. i like it. is it a "raft" style tree? thanks for sharing
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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Interesting. Needs years of work, but it is a nice funky trunk & base. I would probably go $100, but how much more money than that I would need to see it in person. If roots are good, I'd go more, if roots have issues like RockM described, I would drop out of the bidding fairly quickly.
 

Leo in N E Illinois

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Remember, value is entirely subjective, my fun money might be someone else's sweat & tears money. Unlike a commodity like copper or iron or food, bonsai has no material value. So if you personally like it, you get to decide what you will pay. While every tree is unique, the trees themselves are fairly common. Something else will come along in your price range that is equally appealing or maybe even better.
 

Mike Hennigan

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Yea agreed, since the base is what you’d be buying it for anyways since the trunks mostly need to be regrown, it’s hard to say it’s worth since I can’t really tell if there are good roots beneath the soil. Roots can be fixed with time, but if it doesn’t have great nebari started then try not to overpay for it I suppose.
 

TomB

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Are you going for something that is more of a raft style (which this would work for) or something that is more of the traditional clump style with a flat spreading nebari (which I think would be difficult with this)?

In any case there will be a lot of years of development ahead of it.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a price tag up to €200 on this at a nursery. At an auction, potentially quite a bit less, depending on who else wants it. Whether it's 'worth' that to you depends on your plans and how much time you're going to put into it. It took me maybe 5 years to get something like this from €50 raw material, and a further 10 (by the time it's 'finished') to develop it into something worth looking at.

EDIT: Walter Pall posted a tree recently that has a similar base to this - maybe take a look at that one to help you decide whether you want this.

EDIT EDIT: I found it, 'Japanese Maple 21' was the one I was thinking of.
 
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RobertB

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It has some potential. Would be interesting to see where the lateral roots start on that base. It they dive down and there are no surface roots, it's a problem. It they start at soil level and spread a bit that's good.

I really like these raft maples. Very interested to see the lateral roots also.
 

j evans

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Glad you missed it by a bunch rather than a dollar or two. Something better will pop up.
 

rockm

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ah well.. It just went for ~ 260E, so around the 300USD mark. Insane. Guess I will start putting trees on ebay.
I've got similar, but better material for less than half that. Beware stuff sold online (or if you have decent material, pay attention). Uniformed bidders can sometimes have deep pockets...
 

Starfox

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Having a look around a few retailers I would say that 260 in the end was a pretty good price for Europe.
It's also possible I don't know where the cheap Acers are hiding but 260 would get me a lot less tree than that.
 
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