Niobium value?

I read this and laughed. Haven't heard about Niobium for a long time. In 1997, maybe 1998 I met a rich Brazillian (son of a cattle baron) who was in the US to make his own fortune selling all of this "pure" Niobium jewelery (earrings, pendants, bracelets, etc.) The kid had to have about a 1/2 ton of FINISHED merchandise. He tried billing it as the "new" platinum (didn't make sense then, doesn't make sense now). Anyways, nobody was buying, his visa expired, and I was told by a mutual aquaintance that the kid sold his whole inventory to a Maxwell Street flea market vendor for $300 before he went back to Brazil. I wonder what that would be worth now. For what it's worth, that Brazillian kid was a pompous JERK so it seems like a little bit of justice