I'll pay $20 per cutting for a couple of each. Will save you ebay fees. Help a fig addict out!

Good luck......

Thanks... Put some more auctions up on ebay, I need more of your figs :)

those two.. if available will go well above $100 on ebay. you might get lucky and some generous forum member will grant your wish. or your best bet is for those figs to become readily available to general forum members. 

I would recommend going to eBay. I see more of the MF than the MB, but both do come up. A MF auction closed yesterday. Winning bid for 2 cuttings was $52. Good luck.

Maltese Beauty will go for at least double that

I think it is time for me to take a little vacation from the figgy forum........

Thinking the same thing

but this is where i come when i'm taking vacation. 

Should I not offer to buy cuttings here? Not sure if I crossed a line or something.

I haven't been on this forum very long and it was a very rude awakening when I finally found ebay! Im a pretty reasonable guy but for 2 cutting of any variety to get bought or sold for more than $20 is insane!!! We are talking about cuttings here people!!!! LOL, CUTTINGS!!!!!  If the Feds ever caught on to this someone could get sued for price gouging. I could understand some one paying a little bit of money for a rooted plant that someone actually had to spend time and money caring for until it was an established plant, but for cuttings??? At what point did growing figs become a money machine instead of a hobby? It almost seems that these  "top tier figs" get flaunted on here for the sole purpose of driving up prices on ebay.....???? Tell me when Im lying!

LOL, I understand the consumer drives the price on this issue, they must have one of those money trees! I wonder how much cuttings from a money tree would go for on eBay;)

LOL, I understand the consumer drives the price on this issue, they must have one of those money trees! I wonder how much cuttings from a money tree would go for on eBay;)

Take a deep breath, calm down and listen to a story   :)      The market for cuttings is way over my head, too.  

The two figs in question were obtained by flying to Malta more than once, exploring the countryside, climbing mountains, networking, gaining trust, being invited to private homes, etc.  Those things get expensive.  I didn't do them.  But I value the outcome.  Those figs were brought back long before there were rules and quarantines.  The profit from the sale of those cuttings doesn't begin to repay the expense of getting them.  Then the people who buy them want to make some of their money back and so on.  It's easy to clip a cutting but those cuttings didn't come cheaply or easily.  As time goes on they will come down in price.  Be patient.  I'll wait until I can trade something or they come down in price.  People here have been very generous to me.  Look for ways to be generous to others and be helpful.  Make the forum a better place rather than criticizing the ones who helped build it.  There's always more to the story than you may realize.  :)

Ditto for Bob

Meaning you want me to take a vacation  ;)

There are hundreds of fig varieties out there that can be bought for 3 or 4 bucks a cutting or gotten from UC Davis for free.
There certainly seems to be a small group that try and convince us each year that there are figs we just have to have.
This year Maltese Beauty is it - but there was also an attempt to convince folks that Macool was a must have.
Last year Rhonde de Bordeaux and Maltese Falcon were the top "fad figs". 

I understand your frustration, but why do you have to have these specific figs when there are so many out there just waiting for someone to care.

If they are so special to you then why aren't they worth more as they appear special to everyone else.

Why is this?
Who decided these were special figs and is it the same small group every year?
This newbie fleecing is a yearly event.

That being said, if you don't want to pay more, just trade or wait a year.

Climbing mountains????????? Having visited Malta on several occasions during deployments to Sicily and Spain during my Naval career I can assure you mountain climbing is non existant, Hilly? Yes. Maybe 1000 feet high at the highest part.

Jake

Anybody has done a genetic testing for MB and MF? 
The MF description i like my Black Mission, maybe it is the same tree under a different name?

I wasn't there and my imagination probably got carried away with me.  I've always envisioned Malta as a mountain rising out of the sea because I'd heard about sheer cliffs from history books.  That in no way lessens the expense and time involved, although it may not have been as much physical exertion  :)

And the most important part remains.  Help build a great forum and leave the rest out.  Negativity tears the forum mood down and people will be less inclined to be generous.  I'm grateful for what I have and what I've been given and what I've been able to buy.  The forum you see today was built by many people, some of whom are the ones who make the money you're talking about.  Not only that, but no one forces anyone to bid on ebay.  I have a budget, I bid that.  When it goes over I don't sweat it.  One day all the people who are willing to pay more $$ than me will have one and it'll be my turn.  More likely, before that happens someone will see it on my wishlist and offer a trade or some other way for me to get it.  It happens almost weekly at this time of the year.  Meanwhile, as MGGinVA so eloquently pointed out, top tasting figs like Hardy Chicago and Desert King are available inexpensively.  Periodically someone pops up and says, I have 100s of cuttings of JH Adriatic (another top tasting fig) and they're yours $12/3 or something like that.  That was just last year.  In 3-5 years everyone who got those cuttings will have cuttings for sale.  These things happen.  Hang out and you can join in.

I feel like I opened a can of worms, so let me just explain my position, in case anyone is interested.

I spent my summers with my grandparents when I was growing up, working in their daylily nursery from the point I could walk until I graduated high school. In 1991, when I was 9 years old, I sold my Nintendo along with all my games, so that I could buy a newly released daylily, 'Alexandra', at a whopping $200. Was it nicer than the $5 varieties at the local hardware store? Probably not. But I could display it proudly to all of those who came to see the garden. What's it worth now? It's weight in compost.

Flash forward to now. My wife and I aren't wealthy. We both work in public education. We don't drive fancy cars or take extravagant vacations. Our house is old, plain, and we love it. Where I treat myself is my garden. I have every plant labeled with its name and scientific name. I have my two year old daughter with me every chance I get out there. One of my greatest desires is to give her a love of gardening and the natural world. We don't have a lot of land; about a quarter of an acre. Before I even was slightly interested in figs I had around 125 varieties of fruit trees. It's bursting at the seams.

In 2015 we will be part of our local garden tour, with more than a thousand people coming through our yard. I will be extremely surprised if our house and yard aren't the smallest on the tour, we have gone on it and seen many beautiful and extravagant houses and accompanying gardens. Unlike others, however, I want to be able to talk about each variety of plant I grow. I don't have a hired gardener who picks out whatever is on special at Lowe's. I would like our garden to be educational. To build an interest in varieties of fruit trees that people have never heard of our seen in person, to show people they can raise their own chickens and grow their own delicious and healthy fruit, sweeter than any man made candy. I don't know what it's like in other parts of the world, but around here people know of two figs: black and green. Sometimes brown. And most people don't care for any of them. f I am able to spread fig addiction to even one person on that tour, I will have done my job.

Like I said before, I'm not part of his forum to ask for handouts. I doubt that I will even sell cuttings in the future, I'm happier giving them away (someone quote me on this a year from now). I've tracked down a lot of "uncommon" figs (Red Lebanese, CdDN, CdDG, CdDB, RdB, Preto, etc.), and have purchased them from at least five different forum members through ebay. I have no issue paying ebay prices, and am thrilled my money goes to people I "know" that are promoting our hobby. However, there are no MF or MB on ebay at this time, and I just thought I could save someone ebay fees. I am more than happy to wheel and deal.

Too long to read? Summary: a fool and his money are soon parted, and I am that fool.