Email goes straight to a person

We are in the United States, on Pacific time. A question that needs our buyer to check something in the valley takes a day or more, because Gilgit-Baltistan is twelve to thirteen hours ahead and the answer generally has to wait for morning there.

Two things move that timing, and both are worth knowing rather than guessing at. Friday midday prayers close the bazaar, so nothing is bought and little is answered from the Pakistan side for a few hours. During Ramadan the working day in Hunza shifts around the fast and buying slows a good deal. If a reply takes longer than usual in those weeks, that is the reason.

Worth writing to us about

• A want list. If you collect a particular species, habit or village, say so. Our buyer is in the bazaar regularly and a standing want gets filled far more often than a hope that the right piece appears on its own.
• More photographs of something listed. Any angle, backlit, under different lighting, with a different scale reference. Dry, in every case.
• A condition question. If a description left you uncertain, ask. A precise answer costs us nothing and a returned specimen costs us a good deal.
• Provenance. We will tell you exactly what the purchase record says, who said it, and how far we are willing to stand behind it.
• Locality data for the mineralogical record. If you are working on material from the Hunza valleys and want what we have, ask.