[meteorite-list] Another Fragment of the Willamette Meteorite is Up for Sale

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Apr 11 11:26:45 2006
Message-ID: <200604102304.k3AN4Gd21424_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/index.ssf?/base/news/1144635911146930.xml&coll=7

Rock on the block
Another fragment of the Willamette Meteorite is up for sale
RICHARD L. HILL
The Oregonian
April 10, 2006

Another slice of Oregon's celebrity space rock is going on the auction
block.

A 4.5-ounce fragment of the world-famous Willamette Meteorite will be
sold at an auction Tuesday by the Macovich Collection of Meteorites in
New York City.

Darryl Pitt, the collection's curator, is asking $8,000 to $10,000 for
the 71/2-inch-long piece. Pitt also has a 28-pound section of the rock
-- which is not for sale -- that he acquired in a swap of rare
meteorites with the American Museum of Natural History in New York City
about eight years ago.

At least 100 pieces of the meteorite were chiseled, hammered and sawed
off the giant rock before it left Oregon 100 years ago, said Dick Pugh
of Portland, an expert on the Willamette Meteorite who owns two pieces.
Slices are scattered worldwide in museums and private collections. He
said the auction is notable because pieces are seldom available for
public sale, but instead traded privately.

The 151/2-ton Willamette Meteorite is the largest meteorite found in the
United States and the sixth largest in the world. It didn't fall to
Earth in Oregon, but arrived aboard a huge block of ice swept down the
Columbia River from Montana during the huge Missoula Floods about 12,000
to 15,000 years ago.

The meteorite has been steeped in controversy since farmer Ellis Hughes
spotted it in 1902 on a hillside in West Linn. He dragged the ancient
rock from land owned by Oregon Iron and Steel to his property. The
company sued to get it back and won.

The company displayed it during the 1905 Lewis and Clark Exposition in
Portland. A year later, a wealthy New York woman bought the meteorite
for $20,600 and donated it to the American Museum of Natural History.

To display the huge rock on a pedestal in its new Rose Center of Earth
and Space, the museum cut off a 28-pound end section in 1997. Pitt got
the piece by giving the museum a portion of a meteorite from Mars, the
Governador Valadares meteorite, which landed in Brazil in 1958.

The auction, like a similar sale of two other pieces of the meteorite by
Pitt two years ago, has drawn criticism from the Confederated Tribes of
Grand Ronde, which considers the large rock a sacred treasure. Tribal
officials say the meteorite, which they call "Tomanowos," served as a
powerful cleansing and healing source to the tribe's people in ancient
times.

Seven years ago, the tribe asked the New York museum to give it the
Willamette Meteorite, arguing that it was a cultural object protected
for tribal use under federal law. The museum declined, saying the
meteorite was a natural feature of the landscape. But the museum allows
the tribe access to the meteorite for religious, historical and cultural
purposes.

"Our tribe refuses to participate in or encourage the marketing of
spiritually and culturally significant items," Siobhan Taylor, a tribal
spokeswoman, said of the auction. "Instead, we encourage all people to
demonstrate the same respect and cultural sensitivity they give to any
group of people and its treasures that represent sacrality and culture."

Pitt is sympathetic, but says he has been unsuccessful in past attempts
to reach an amicable agreement with the tribe.

"I want to be respectful of (the tribe's) feelings," Pitt said, "but I
don't think that the spirit of Tomanowos can be limited to a piece of
nickel-iron or to my specimen. It's much, much bigger than that."

Taylor said that Willamette University, which has a piece of the
meteorite, will donate it to the tribe in a ceremony April 17.

In a 2002 auction in Tucson, Ariz., David C. Wheeler of West Linn and a
group of investors led by Matt Morgan of Mile High Meteorites in
Colorado bought two pieces of the Willamette Meteorite from Pitt.

Wheeler, who bid $3,000 for a rectangular piece that weighs a third of
an ounce, said he donated it to the Grand Ronde after hearing of the
tribe's concerns. Morgan said he paid $11,000 for a 31/2-ounce fragment,
then sold slices of it and kept the rest for his collection. He said he
offered a piece to the tribe, but never heard from it.
Received on Mon 10 Apr 2006 07:04:16 PM PDT