$15?

Hard to say - you would get more if it would be gesneriad society members - but horticultural society... People possible do not know what chirita is.

Irina

Yeah, that's kind of what I was thinking. My son said what would you have to pay if you went around town and bought one? I said I've never seen a full-sized, in-bloom, chirita in bloom anywhere--certainly not here. Maybe at a gesneriad show and sale. I think I'd be hurt if it went for much less than that--which is pretty silly when I give them away all the time!

If it's an auction, it is whatever price people choose to bid, but you could suggest a start price, and also put a reserve on it so it isn't sold if it doesn't reach a certain price.
If you don't want it to go too cheaply, donate a less special plant like a strep or an AV that you have spares of.

A nursery around here had huge plants of chirita Aiko and Keiko, each for $8. They were sitting in a corner, not selling for at least half a year since I noticed them. I wasn't interested in chiritas back then, and then I decided to try one, so I bought the Keiko last fall; Aiko got sold maybe a month later (I'm still kicking myself for not buying it :) ). They were both very nice large plants, with a lot of suckers, a lot of buds. I guess it's what Irina said, people often just don't know what a chirita is. You look at it and see a large plant with tons of bugs, but a non-gessie person might see it and think that it's sure very tiny compared to their ficus, and it's not even in flower! :-D So I guess I agree with dampflippers -- if it would hurt you if the plant sold cheap, donate something not as special (maybe a large AV would go better with the general audience, and it would be less of a loss for you?), and sell (or just give away) the chirita to someone who is sure to appreciate it. Or you could donate it anyway, knowing that it'll probably not go for the price it's really worth, but maybe it'll introduce someone to chiritas.

You could print off or write some instructions on how to keep it alive and tape to the plant pot in a plastic bag. Perhaps add your phone number in case they need help (depending on whether you will know the purchaser).

I was told to put a minimum price on it, and a card with brief instructions on care. This is a new (to me) group, and for all I know they do all their gardening outdoors. I have too many plants--love to grow cuttings and suckers and seeds and such and keep crowding myself out of room, and I take plants most months to a group of past-our-prime gardeners like me--take the biggest plants usually so I will have more room. Don't mind a bit giving them away. I have always--or at least as long as I can remember--felt sort of like a missionary trying to get people more interested in growing more and different kinds of things. Right now I seem to be a missionary for chiritas! But while I give away many, somehow I feel uncomfortable with either over-charging or being under-appreciated! Silly, isn't it?

I know how you feel. It's sort of that a fair auction price helps you to know that the plant is wanted and will have a good home. Kind of a similar thing -- a friend of mine was trying to find a home for a kitten, and her vet told her that if she doesn't personally know the people who want to get the kitten, she should charge a fee for the kitten, not give it away for free. The reasoning was that if the prospective owner is prepared to pay money for the kitten, he's more likely to have thought about it and prepared for the kitten, and so the kitten will have a good home. And plants are a lot like kittens :) Good homes are important! I have a rooted chirita Nakako leaf, which managed to produce 5 tiny plantlets already, and I have no idea how I'll find good homes for the 3 or 4 that I won't keep -- it almost breaks my heart a little bit :)

More to the point -- I've only seen one plant auction, a small one, and there was one plant there, a large sinningia tuber, that had a reserve, $15 I think, and that's what it sold for; pretty much everything else sold for much cheaper. My impression was that small plantlets sold for what they were worth, some even for more, and large plants went for less than I'd guess a fair price would be. But they didn't have large chiritas, so I don't know much they would go for...

I have just looked at a well known auction site, and most of them start at $5.50 although they have one Aiko starting at $3 with $8 postage.
http://search.ebay.com/search/search.dll?from=R40&_trksid=m37&satitle=chirita&category0= and they have sold recently from $3.95 to $10.49

So you could either put a low start price like $3 to get people bidding, or a bit higher at $5.

Let us know how you get on anyway.

Here is a link that might be useful: auction prices

Alenka = do not kick yourself for not buying Aiko. Much more fun to start from a small one and grow it yourself. And Aiko can be huge.

I join the recommedation - donate an AV or 2 or 3 or 4 - you possibly have duplicates.

Irina

Actually I have very few duplicate AVs, and none that look like something that would get auction-goers interested. I have two more Aikos almost as big and also full of buds, plus small ones. (And I should say, much as I'd love to grow them, streps don't like it here unless you crank the AC way down. I try to grow things that will be happy here without excessive expense and depletion of the ozone layer! I may be sorry for not taking more--have several big Blue Moons, but they're not blooming right now. I'm really curious about what kind of reception they'll get! I threw in a Nautilocalyx lynchii I only rooted a few months ago and is already good sized--easy, easy, and a beautiful plant. Good bedding plant here. Not reliably hardy of course.

That eBay site was interesting--several I don't have. Oh, my, I'm a glutton for punishment! Amazing low prices if those are the size they're sending; very little more than the starter plants at places like Rob's Violets and Kartuz. I've noticed that lots of times the big ones don't go for what they're worth--tho' I'm like you, Irina, and much prefer to buy small plants and feel like I've grown it myself!
After much debate with myself, and even making several cards up with different prices, I put $10.00 on it, and it went up a buck at a time to $16. Guess that's okay. Quite a bit of talk about it too. The Nautilo. since it was only a few months from the piece I knocked off a bigger plant I put $5 on, and I think it went for 7 or 8. The gal that got it is in my so-called African Violet club--so called because we talk about everything else but not too often AVs!--and she surely knows she could get it from me for nothing, but I guess she was supporting me and the organization. Looks like an interesting group, by the way. We joined. Looks to be mostly professionals, researchers, nursery owners, landscapers--but they said they want people who like plants. That's me!