[meteorite-list] Hot Desert Meteorites

From: Rhett Bourland <rbourlan_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:54:05 2004
Message-ID: <IOEBKAHMGFBDJMOFGDFNOEEMDGAA.rbourlan_at_evansville.net>

I couldn't agree more with Bernd's statements here concerning people always
worrying and bickering about prices of meteorites. Plain and simple, how
much is a certain meteorite worth? However much someone will pay for it.
You don't get much more of an open market than with meteorites. I recently
bought a piece of Lodran (thanks Steve Arnold!) that cost a bit more than
I'm used to spending. Commercially speaking, was it worth it? Probally not
but I really don't care because I didn't have any of this type of meteorite
in my collection. Am I going to get angry at Steve because he charged a lot
for it and call him greedy and say he's just so evil for it? OF COURSE
NOT!!! I gave him a little more money than I would have prefferred but much
much much more importantly I got a piece of this rare meteorite that I've
been wanting for quite some time. Hey, for all that, I'm actually happy to
kick in a little bit of a reward for him there for getting such an amazing
and rare meteorite.
I'm mostly a collector but do sell a few meteorites from time to time and
have some on my asteroidmodels.com site right now. Admittedly, some of them
are rather pricey but others are right at market value (market value being
what I see most other people charging) if not below it. For obvious reasons
I don't want to go into details about how much or how I aquired all of these
but I will say that some of my larger proffits have come from meteorites
that sold out in a day or two. Am I evil and greedy because I made a decent
proffit from them? I don't think so because the people that bought them
certainly seemed happy enough to have the pieces I sold them even though
they may have payed a bit more than the average meteorite. In fact, some of
the people who bought them have also bought some of the other meteorites
that I've had for sale and they always seem happy enough to just have the
meteorites that they get.
My point in this email is this; if you're going to argue about anything
concerning the NWA's argue about lack of a detailed recovery vs. volume of
meteorites now in our collective possessions. Don't argue about who's the
greedier dealer. Its simple, A meteorite, any meteorite be it NWA or
classic historical fall of an extremely rare type, is worth however much
someone will pay for it. If you think a meteorite costs too much don't buy
it. Some of the pricier pieces in my collection I'm sure dealers have made
some pretty good money off of me but I really couldn't care less because
that just means that I have another wonderful rock from another world that I
wouldn't be able to own without them.
My 2 cents,
Rhett Bourland
www.asteroidmodels.com
www.asteroidmodels.com/personal
www.meteoritecollectors.org

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-admin_at_meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-admin_at_meteoritecentral.com]On Behalf Of Bernd
Pauli HD
Sent: Saturday, February 16, 2002 6:02 AM
To: LABENNE METEORITES
Cc: dean bessey; meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
Subject: [meteorite-list] Hot Desert Meteorites


Luc a écrit:

> ... and about the NWA, those returned recently from Marocco
> say that the quantity they saw in not so bigger that before.


Bonjour Luc, Hello List,

I was just reading Christian Pinter's article about the 2001 Mineral and
Gem Show in Munic in Meteorite, Feb 2002, Vol. 8, No. 1, pp. 38-39,
when your post arrived here. There are three remarks in Christian's
article that I would like to share with all of us:

1. Bruno:

"But today there is only one tenth of what
had been found in Morocco two years ago."

2. Ahmed Pani:

"There is really less material coming from the Sahara now."

3. Erich Haiderer:

"There is still enough out there for decades to come."

> For me there are not good or bad meteorites, there are well documented or
> poorly documented meteorites, well preserved or weathered meteorites, nice
> or bad looking meteorites and scientifically important or not meteorites,
with
> all the intermediate states.

I absolutely agree with the above words! Very often conversations about
our love for meteorites oscillate between how exotic, common, or
historical they are, and, on the other hand we complain (!) about the
decreasing prices and monetary values of our Hot Desert meteorites. One
list member wrote to me in a private mail that prices for historical
falls like - say, Juvinas, Steinbach, etc. - will never decrease as much
as the prices for those classified or unclassified NWAs. Again our views
are shifting towards the financial investigation and away from our
enthusiasm for those "heavenly messengers". A lunar is a lunar, a
Martian is a Martian. I for my part collect meteorites because I love
them, not because I want to investigate and make profits - after all I
am not a dealer but a collector.

When we started collecting these asteroidal "crumbs" many years ago, we
said: "Oh, if I only had a eucrite in my collection!" Now some of us
will say: "A eucrite would be OK ... what? It's a NWA! ... and there are
no coordinates, no total weight, ... ah, well I think I had better buy a
Stannern eucrite. Thus I won't lose my money!

And now a quick glance at Stannern in my database:

Stannern: brecciated; monomict; noncumulate

And, as a comparison, one of those Hot Desert meteorites:

Sahara 98110: brecciated; monomict

Any difference? OK, I know the Sahara 98110 does have coordinates which
the Labennes will disclose at a later time, but do coordinates make a
eucrite a eucrite? A scientifical approach to this problem would be
different (see my post re: "NWA meteorites blessing or omen? / Wed, 13
Feb 2002) but, again, I am not a meteoriticist, I am a collector!

Best wishes,

Bernd

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Received on Sat 16 Feb 2002 10:42:30 AM PST