[meteorite-list] Total Number of Meteorites?

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Dec 7 09:42:21 2005
Message-ID: <006d01c5fb3c$0738ce20$bec8fea9_at_ns279>

Hi Doug,

I disagree - greed&gold, diamonds are a girl's best friend - comparions
between meteorites and materials, which epitomize rareness, desirability and
value, are most perspicuous to laymen, who in general, if they know, what a
meteorite is at all, have no perception, how rare the stuff really is!!

If we regard it in from a more obtuse angle, we have to concede that at
present we have a totally sick and hilarious situation, haven't we?
Worldwide there are handful of institutional collections and perhaps 1000
private collectors and we deal more or less in a coterie with by far the
rarest material in existance and the impact of the desert material together
with the simultaneous development of ebay as the main selling instrument and
additionally the puny inflow of new collectors, led to the situation, that
the rarest types of meteorites, even those, where exist on whole world only
such a little amount, that one could comfortably store in a small trunk, are
permanently, day by day, available in web at lower prices, than at which any
lousy semi-precious stone is going.
It's amazing also with the ordinary desert stuff. If you are not living near
a desert, blue ice field or a site, where once a meteorite was found, you
can get out of the door and run around for the rest of your life with your
detector, you'll find gold and silver, but no meteorite. And this stuff you
can buy cheaper now than many other consumer goods! So cheap, that some
hunters even let their chondrites in desert, as the transportation costs
wouldn't justify to pick them up.
So we have the ditsy situation, that those members of the small circle of
collectors, who should know it better,
dwell on quarellings, whether a price is exaggerated and whether this or
that stone could be found somewhere a dollar per gram cheaper or that they
let pass a R-chondrite, wherefrom exist less material than from Moon,
21kg, if I remember right, at 5 or 6$ per gram on ebay, always forgetting
that they have to deal with by far the most rare and nonreproducable matter
on Earth.
Man Doug! Remember Bessey's After-Munich-show-dumping, when he was to lazy
to wrap all in again and offered it at 50$/kg? I propagated this sale to
about 300 Germans too and they had even an offer for gratis instant
classification and NWA-numbering, additionally the shipment rates were
cheap, around 9$ for 20kg.
Doug, tell me, what could a collector desire more? With that small amounts
an average collector usually is consumating, he would never manage to get
the stuff so cheap, if he would travel by his own to Morocco to buy and if
he would afterwards add up the expences of that trip on the kg-price. Not to
mention the hard slog to get ordinary chondrites classified.
Do you know how much they ordered?
12kg. Twelve kilo.
A very intriguing experiment, isn't it.
Obviously they perceived the price as not attractive.
But why? I would hazard a guess that those reasons led them to their
opinion:
- as meteorites are permanently available on ebay, they are not aware, that
meteorites are rare.
- what does not cost much, has no value
(- a special German attitude at the moment: If a dealer offers smth. then
they think, that he would make a good profit with his price, else he
wouldn't offer it. Thus it's no bargain (and we rather pay 3 times more on
ebay for the same stuff, as there we set the price, therefore then it's a
bargain) + I'm a meteorite person, the dealer is meteorite person --> we are
family, if the dealer wants to earn money with me, he's rotten).
- they think that meteorites will be available in those current quantities
until the endof all days, as in Morocco for sure are still waiting 100,000
tons, not knowing, that the rush is over.
Now your turn, Doug. Don't you think, that then such comparisions are
helpful?
Do you agree at least, that it's amusing,
that people scorn material, which is by far more rare than gold and about as
rare as diamonds at 50/kg.
Homework for you - 2 days ago my computer got broke (paaaanic), have no
time - find goods, which cost more than 50bucks per kilo and estimate their
quantities.

Another experiment. Search on ebay for meteori*: I get out 1037 items (most
are meteorites).
853 meteorites listed in category: Rocks, Fossils, Minerals.
Search for amethyst.
921 items are listed in category: Rocks, Fossils, Minerals.
Conclusion for the laymen: Meteorites are as rare as amethyst.
Look for ammonite 598 hits.
Conclusion for the laymen: Ammonites are twice as rare than meteorites.
Da capo....

You see, how insane funny it is?
The Hupes, Afanasjev, Haberer permanently offer lunaites in US-and German
ebay.
(Hey a dream for those from the Apollo-generation).
A layman looks into ebay, sees that there each week are listed several
pieces of Moon for sale
- who could resent, that he thinks then - Moon, if it's available each day
on ebay, it must be a very common thing. Wherefrom should he know, that all
lunar material still available in public for the 6 billion human beings on
this planet even won't fill his backpack?

Another phenomen caused by the sheer visibility of the overwhelming choice
of meteorites on web:
more and more laymen are convinced, that the brown stone they picked up, is
a meteorite.
A very funny observation I made: in former times people wrote and ask: Could
my find be a meteorite?
Now they ask: What is the value of my meteorite, how can I sell it best.
And I tell you, with more and more it's getting more difficult to convince
them, that the stone they found in the garden is no lunar mare basalt.
Here in Germany with our 40 preserved meteorites from the last 1000 years,
where most fell on the feet of the people, I always have to explain them,
that to hit the lottery-jackpot is ways more probable, than to find here a
meteorite.
But still some of them don't believe me, the sickest are those, who tell me
names, when I'm offering a meteorite, because they would be able to find
copiously such meteorites on their next airing...

Crazy world. We have to do with the rarest stuff on Earth, where the
Japanese spend 300 Mega$ to collect a gram, but almost nobody knows, that
it's so rare. Parallel universe.

And with the experts, I often have to grin, when they, let's invent a more
eyecatching example and take a space jewel, one of the only 80 pallasites,
complain that anything else than 0.4$/g would be a rip-off.
Folks! Imagine meteorite collecting would be as popular as philately, how
much would you have to pay then!
(and Captain Blood, sorry, I still refuse to apprehend, that there exist
smth like a "meteorite market", if you count together all collectors, they
are much less than you tought in your profession...).

So Doug, let exist 5 times more meteorites than the listed tkws, the
proportions do not change at all!

>is systemmatically under-represented on virtually all
> minor impacting meteorites

Would doubt that (or I misunderstood).
By far the most registered meteorites stem from Antarctica and from desert.
Don't know, how accurate the balances are the Antartic teams are using, but
I guess the weights are accurate.
Same with Oman finds, with a very few exceptions
and the NWAs, there are given the weights of the purchased stones. Would not
make sense for the dealers to keep secret, that they have from the submitted
stone more in stock as told - only then, if they are so jerkish and would
submit from the material in future to get more numbers, but then the weights
would be recorded anyway.
Don't come with 869, whether it has 2 tons or 4 tons doesn't make the
cabbage fatty, as we say here.

With stone meteorites your guess certainly doesn't work,
make some stats - how many >1 ton stones do we know from our 30.000-40.000
meteorites?
Impromptu: Jilin, Allende, Pultusk (lost), NWA 869, Tsarev, perhaps
Kunya-Urgench, perhaps Gao....and...and....?
So no sincere reason to conjecture, that everywhere a small stone felt, that
there are some tons more in the nearby forest.

Somewhat different with irons and stony irons, but irons make up only 5% of
all falls and if you count that few mass irons available and which still are
hunted today - a dozen perhaps?
And don't forget, that only those strewnfields are hunted, which promise
good finds.....
So add some dozens or 100tons for Campo, Gibeon, Nantan, Sikhote,
Canyon...and there we are.
It might change the tonnage of all meteorites considerably, but not the
ratios to other earthly rare materials.

And so I think to illustrate the rareness of meteorites, we should all carry
on, if asked, with comparing meteorites with other pretious materials.

Buckleboo!
Martin

PS: I'll ever will prefer meteorites instead of gold&diamonds, they are more
fascinating.

----- Original Message -----
From: <MexicoDoug_at_aol.com>
To: <Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 9:48 AM
Subject: Re:[meteorite-list] Total Number of Meteorites?


> << "If you take the info in the MetBull database on face value,
> you find that there are ... Irons + stony irons: 521 tons" >>
>
> Wow, regarding weight that's about a ton for every collector, give or
> take...time to rent a U-haul to pick up mine:)
>
> Just as there are good comments about the foolishness of the high side
tons,
> the "total known weight" is systemmatically under-represented on virtually
all
> minor impacting meteorites, (though with Campo del Cielo the
> underrepresentation is incredibly serious, too) frequently showing a
factor of 1/5 or 1/10
> for the less devastating falls. Why anyone would wantto compare meteorite
> weight to industrial precious metals I still haven't grasped...Is it the
Gibeon
> dials on tons of Rolex watches? Allende ... what 2 tons? Actually is
good bet
> is 5 tons, more than all meteorite carbonaceous recognized, I think, and
was a
> very intensive campaign that arrived at the 2 tons. Those reserves are
> somewhere...behaving themselves...
>
> Maybe it's not always a good idea to assist in such potentially misleading
> comparisons in the press, where ohh ahhh reigns supreme and unbridled and
truth
> and authenticity take a back seat to drama ... and sources are being
sought
> out - the way I read this is it will be bound to come back and shoot us in
the
> foot so best to tread very carefully and softly...when serving as
information
> sources for newspaper articles.
> Saludos, Doug
>
> ______________________________________________
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Received on Wed 07 Dec 2005 09:39:25 AM PST