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The RF incident et al

Dear Gang,
First, I accept the group's collective Kick in the Butt Award. I knew in
advance that the Discovery Channel,  specifically 'Discovery News' was
running a story on meteorites that was going to be a highlight piece before
Mir had problems. They told me they had canceled it - I was selected to
participate in a Q&A forum on their website that was tied into the story.
Little did I know that the piece did air, albeit cut, so that is my excuse
for not notifying the group. 

The show may run again. It aired Fri nite, Sun morn, and I don't recall the
next airing. See their website, and look for 'science' and then 'Discovery
News'. (www.discovery.com)

The piece had an underlying theme which distressed me. And, you can see how
much research they did to try and do a hatchet job on the collecting
community and dealers. 

Basically it boiled down to this:
One, Phillips Auction denies the academic community of meteorites.
Two, Ron Farrell steals whatever rare material the academics do have. (RF
was asked 'where do you get your specimens from?', and his laughing reply
was, 'it is a secret!'.

They didn't do enough research, ie, like talking to OTHER dealers, or other
academics who work WITH dealers. While the talking head was standing in
front of Nakhla, Chass., and Sherg. at the Guernsey Auction, she said, 'now
these specimens will never be studied'. What a crock! Who told her they
were they ONLY specimens of those falls available. Technically, if a
collector got ahold of those specimens, she is right. But the implication
was that they had NEVER been studied.

I know from personal  dealings that there are lots of meteorites traded to
institutions before being offered to the public. New Mex has half a kilo of
Zagami because of trades, and other specimens also. The bulk of their
collection is mainly thin sections otherwise.(Discounting the main mass of
Norton Cty, which disintegrates as we read this in it's case). 

Without monetary incentive, a lot of material would rot in the field and
never get collected, except by accident. If the government were to
intervene, and not allow private ownership of meteorites, whose to say that
people wouldn't hoard their stuff, and NOT trade with institutions for fear
of having their rock confiscated. Academia loses either way. However, I
would point out that collectors or dealers are only temporary custodians of
the meteorites anyway. Look at the institutions that have benefited from
private estates donating or selling their collections. You cannot put a
price on the amount of time or money spent by Monnig, Nininger, DuPont or
even Haag collecting. In fact, if Haag was a rock and roll  star, he would
probably be better off monetarily :) 

One other thing - dealers do not have access to the Antarctic finds, some
8000 or more specimens with every group represented. I know of some people
that have gone down there to collect, and bring back specimens as
'souvenirs'. Also, how many academics have private collections?? But, that
is getting off the point. 

Dealers and museum curators should work together. The answer lies here. I
would propose an association of meteorite dealers, that meets with the
museum curators association periodically, like at the major rock shows. The
curator's assoc. already does that, I understand.  Here is where everyone
can vent and work together. Trade rare material for commercially valuable
but scientifically barren surplus the museums have. The intrinsic value of
the material is different to each party. Here, guidelines for trading can
be established. Right now, it is all done in secret. Also, the museum
curators can pass along information to dealers, and the dealers to
collectors, on the proper way to maintain their collections so not to
degrade the value, scientific or aesthetic. That is what is important and
our responsibility - preservation.  If the material is distributed and then
allowed to 'rot' in a collection, then I can understand the scientific
community's adversarial role here. We shouldn't waste this resource. Nor
should we further limit our freedom! (Don't get me started on the 2nd
amendment!)

Comments and ideas welcome, either personally or through the forum. How
about a collectors organization, too? The seed has been planted here with
the forum.

John Walters, I will answer the rest of your query personally.

Regards and apologies,
Walt Radomski
meteorite@compuserve.com
http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/meteorite/


PS - If there is such an organization founded, which side of the table
would Mike sit??
After all, they named a rock on Mars after him :)  

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