SC - Getting over it. (Way...way off topic.)

[Michael Newton]

The idea that doubling the delivery distance doubles the price is
questionable logic.  Spices at the time were low volume, high value goods.
Dealers charged what the traffic would bear and availability and
desirability would have more to do with the price than transport distance.  

In 1503, the Portuguese delivered 1,300 tons of black pepper to Europe.
They traversed a greater distance at considerably more risk than the
Venetians who traded through the Mameluks of Egypt, but the price of pepper
in Europe dropped by 1/3 at the tremendous availability and the removal of
the Mameluk middlemen.  The demand was still so high, it kept the market
from collapsing.

To evaluate the effect of transportation costs on a spice, one needs to know
about the quatities imported over a given period, the usage and the demand.

Bear 

> 2] In 1311 the spices purchased for Queen Isabella of England 
> included,
> among others, two pounds of "grani paradisi" at two shillings 
> sixpence per
> pound, and two pounds of "cardamome" at five shillings per 
> pound. (Note that
> the cardamom cost twice as much as the grains of paradise, 
> which is what
> might be expected for something coming the farther distance 
> from India as
> compared to the Grains of Paradise from West Africa). (reference: F.D.
> Blackley and G. Hermanson, ed., *The Household Book of Queen 
> Isabella of
> England* [Edmonton, Alberta: University of Alberta Press, 1971], pp.
> 108-109)
> 
> 
> Francesco Sirene