[meteorite-list] My First Piece

From: Philip R. Burns <pib_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:55:40 2004
Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.2.20020104120358.00a54010_at_pibburns.com>

At 05:16 PM 1/3/02 -0800, you wrote:

>I would enjoy hearing how others got started, that first piece that
>infected you with meteorite madness. Some of you have multi-million
>dollar collections, others on this list only a few prized pieces. They
>all had to start with one lowly piece as the foundation, the one we
>will never sell or trade away. What was it?

When I was a youngster in the 1950s I subscribed to "Things of Science"
which every month or so sent a new little science project to work on.
One of these was about meteors and meteorites, and included a small fragment
of a meteorite, probably a Canyon Diablo.

While I retained my interested in astronomy as I grew older, I wasn't bitten
by the meteorite collecting bug until I entered college. My youthful
collecting
passions were stamps, which I still collect, and sea shells, which I don't.
Around 1970 I purchased a 4 1/2 pound Campo del Cielo for $20 at some
random mineral
show. I still have that rusty old specimen. From time to time I purchased
more meteorites, sometimes from local shows, sometimes from dealers like
David New.
I didn't purchase anything from the late 1980s until around 1998, when the
rush of
new meteorite specimens inspired me to start buying again.


-- Philip R. "Pib" Burns
    pib_at_pibburns.com
    http://www.pibburns.com/
Received on Fri 04 Jan 2002 01:14:26 PM PST