This
would leave a margin to cover a possible close deal against competition
where some one or more of similar lots in other hands may have been
rated lower.
These
ratings are also constantly influenced by the demands of the market.
If two-grainers were in good demand and three- and four-grainers
sluggish, the rating of the former would be higher and the latter
correspondingly lower, and so on. Large stones are comparatively
scarce, and therefore naturally worth more with an ordinary market than
small stones, yet for two years past five- to twelve-grainers have been
rated as low or even lower than four-grainers, because there was no
demand for them. As they are being again called for, they are now
rapidly advancing to a price in accord with their natural relative
value.
Few
men agree in the matter of rating. For this reason buyers think one
importer cheaper than another, though both buy equally well and sell on
the same margin. The probability is that one rates the goods which the
buyer uses at a lower figure than the other, in which case he must have
rated some of the other lots correspondingly high.
For
this reason importers prefer to sell unbroken lots, and will do so at a
very small margin of profit rather than assort them and take the
chances of holding some of the lots until either cost of carrying eats
up the profits or they are obliged to sell at a price below the rating
to get rid of them and close up the parcel.
Present prices in this market, as near as can be stated, are as follows:
