RichieT
Valuable Member
So I've been thinking about this for a while and finally figured I'd write out some of my thoughts.
I imagine this is a very debatable topic and goes hand in hand with the "name game" that we all love to play so much. So remember, opinions are like bellybuttons, everybody has one. So if someone disagrees with you don't go crying hater and flamer, just roll with it.
As the coral industry pushes forward and expands, things that we have taken for granted in the past, will eventually change. Unlike technology, which we all like to adopt fairly quickly, new ideas and concepts take a lot longer to adopted and even longer to be generally accepted.
I believe "lineage" is one of the things that most collectors hold very close to heart. The whole "this is a x vendor's coral or y vendor's coral" For most of these collector pieces it was what made the difference between a $200 colony and a $200 per eye frag. I assume that when the hobby started and really got moving it was fairly easy to keep this practice alive. There were only so many people importing and then redistributing. On top of that there were only so many people buying. This relatively limited number of people meant that colonies were maintained and sold in whole and when they were distributed by a vendor or a hobbyist lineage really did mean something. You were tracing the coral back to probably the only guy that had that specific morph of that specific coral. I'm generalizing here of course, but you get the gist.
Today, however, importers and wholesalers have realized or are starting to realize that the hobby is picking up steam and more money is flooding into the market. They are importing more coral than ever before. They are propagating coral themselves. Colonies are being split up and frags are being distributed to not one but many vendors.
There have been several instances of this in just the last few months where somebody posts a picture and a handful of others chime in that they've seen the same thing elsewhere.
People then get defensive that only their coral is the "real" deal. Which in a sense it is because they named it something. That name belongs to them in a way. We aren't copy-writing coral names... YET.
But this brings me to my overall point. As the hobby expands and coral is propagated before it even hits the wholesalers and then vendors how important is lineage? If 8 people get mini-colonies of the exact same colony is it fair to cry foul when someone uses the same name? It's going to happen regardless, but it doesn't hurt to talk about it in the open.
Sometimes, I think this topic is avoided because it also brings into question how limited or rare corals really are.
Rich
I imagine this is a very debatable topic and goes hand in hand with the "name game" that we all love to play so much. So remember, opinions are like bellybuttons, everybody has one. So if someone disagrees with you don't go crying hater and flamer, just roll with it.
As the coral industry pushes forward and expands, things that we have taken for granted in the past, will eventually change. Unlike technology, which we all like to adopt fairly quickly, new ideas and concepts take a lot longer to adopted and even longer to be generally accepted.
I believe "lineage" is one of the things that most collectors hold very close to heart. The whole "this is a x vendor's coral or y vendor's coral" For most of these collector pieces it was what made the difference between a $200 colony and a $200 per eye frag. I assume that when the hobby started and really got moving it was fairly easy to keep this practice alive. There were only so many people importing and then redistributing. On top of that there were only so many people buying. This relatively limited number of people meant that colonies were maintained and sold in whole and when they were distributed by a vendor or a hobbyist lineage really did mean something. You were tracing the coral back to probably the only guy that had that specific morph of that specific coral. I'm generalizing here of course, but you get the gist.
Today, however, importers and wholesalers have realized or are starting to realize that the hobby is picking up steam and more money is flooding into the market. They are importing more coral than ever before. They are propagating coral themselves. Colonies are being split up and frags are being distributed to not one but many vendors.
There have been several instances of this in just the last few months where somebody posts a picture and a handful of others chime in that they've seen the same thing elsewhere.
People then get defensive that only their coral is the "real" deal. Which in a sense it is because they named it something. That name belongs to them in a way. We aren't copy-writing coral names... YET.
But this brings me to my overall point. As the hobby expands and coral is propagated before it even hits the wholesalers and then vendors how important is lineage? If 8 people get mini-colonies of the exact same colony is it fair to cry foul when someone uses the same name? It's going to happen regardless, but it doesn't hurt to talk about it in the open.
Sometimes, I think this topic is avoided because it also brings into question how limited or rare corals really are.
Rich
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