AW: [meteorite-list] Ensisheim Meteorite show - brief account

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Jun 20 08:37:21 2006
Message-ID: <006501c69466$3f2bfbe0$4f41fea9_at_name86d88d87e2>

Good morning too,

time to add shortly some of my observations from hot and hearty Ensisheim.
As always also this year for every obsession the right pieces could be
found. A special trend I couldn't perceive, only that most, who I asked
experienced the same as I, that sales went much better than last year.
The volume of the desert material was a little bit smaller than last year,
chiefly because some of the Moroccan dealers, who joined last year couldn't
come. Main NWA-representatives were with their large stall again Senior &
Junior Hmani with many impressive sized desert whackers and interesting
exotics. With their special sense of humor, they placed on the floor a
larger grab box with "aubrites" and the only grab box left with NWA 869,
wherein the usual suspects like new confrere Hanno Strufe, Christian Anger,
Harald Strehlik fished with a happy glow in their eyes like boys in the
sandbox for some uncommon odds.
Some nice fresh crusters were found in the first room, which is called the
"purgatory" - although the temperature there was ways more bearable than in
the paradise of the main hall - here I kept in mind some erratic prices of
up to 10Euro per gram for ordinary chondrites, asked by a Moroccan seller,
who obviously suffered from the even for him unfamiliar heat.

Our Russian friends could send this time only two single standard bearers,
Hunter-King Dima and friend. Dima always laughing, set up on Friday his
table like an oriental spice dealer with rolled up plastic bags.
Gosh, only if you wanted to ruin yourself, you should have taken a glimpse
into this bags - they were full of new and astonishing Oman finds and
obviously so well priced, that the next day Dima's corners of the mouth met
behind his ears, cause he had sold almost all.
He took me aside and showed me a double-fist-seized new diogenite - it was
so green, that even Tatahouine would pale beside.

The main hall presented again the distinctive mixture, which makes the
Ensisheim fair so well worth to be visited. Side by side with the
professional and experienced dealers also the collectors and enthusiasts,
who never could afford an own table at one of the more commercial big fairs
found their places on an equal footing and presented their tempting
specimens.

Where to start.. in the middle on the right aisle there was the strong
Suisse bar starting with Twannberg-II finder Marc Jost, who had beside his
meteoritic assortment handcrafted glass bells for sale, Swiss made meteorite
watches and meteorites with crocheted caps (winters are cold in the
mountains), followed by Peter Marmet, who remained true to his passion and
offered a variety of pedigree specimens with historic labels and/or painted
numbers from the most famous collections.
In between him and Marc sat an overwhelming huge (full?)-slice of the Bear
Creek iron. J?rgen Nauber completed the fraction with a variety of costly
sins, among them some names, which one rarely can find offered for sale.
Hanno Strufe discovered his passion for fairs and remarkably upgraded his
stall with fine displays and light installations and brought classified
NWA-goodies in various sizes, also affordable for the small-budget
collectors.
 
The Suisse line faced on the opposite side of the aisle the friendly front
of Chladni's heirs from Germany:
My friend Andreas Gren, who had for the first time his own table in
Ensisheim and displayed there a remarkable variety of well prepared irons,
common locales but also many rare and difficult to find names, he is on the
best way to be soon one of the first addresses for irons in Europe, I guess,
as well as smaller samples of 19th century falls.
I occupied the neighbour table, Svend gave me a good example not to swagger
about one's own material - perhaps only one funny remark, my showcase I had
to open almost more often for two dissertations from 17th century about
comets than for the meteorites inside.
The walls behind our tables we plastered with Svend's reprints of historic
meteorite and fall pictures, perhaps a mistake as the visitors may have
thought, that they weren't for sale.
The quality of the prints and the paper are very convincing and I was very
surprised, how large they were as in Svend's ads and auctions one
automatically is underestimating the size. (Buy that stuff, they are highly
decorative).
Between Andi and me, Chief Impactor Olaf Gabel placed his rapidly emptying
showcase with impactites and tektites of various preparations and localities
so rare, that I have to confess, that I never heard of (but I'm not an
impact specialist).
Next table was the playground for real scientists, often you could see there
the who is who of French meteoricists engrossed in lively discussions - as
it was the stall of the new Guardian (finally!) Stefan Ralew and his wife
Svetlana, who brought aside their beautiful fresh crusted NWAs (cheaper
priced than at all Moroccan tables) the rarest of the rarest types from
Maghreb, among them outstanding strange stuff. - Btw. also another purpose
of such shows is the possibility to compare material, so one could see, that
Frederic Beroud & Christophe Boucher's - who had of course also their table
presenting their finds, among them CM2, CO3 well fitting in the this year's
fair theme: Carbonaceous Chondrites -
that their TNZ057, the amazing anomalous C4 and Stefan's NWA 2900 are of so
striking similarity, that they should have shared the same parent body. -
(there is a certain difference in the dark inclusion, so that they most
probably aren't directly paired).
Stefan pushed along to the St.Marie fair, if you are interesting in a slice
(20-40g) of NWA 2900, just give me a nownote and we'll proceed, when we'll
know, what will be left - cause it was classified as a CV3 only, we can't
ask more as 15$/g (if a reclassification will be done, we don't know yet,
because we have no idea yet, how in such a case the deposit-thing is
handled).

Ooops, I see, if I continue the same way, the report will be a novel..
So I have to shorten the thing and to switch the perspective.

The choices of meteorites with names and of historical falls were this year
really, really excellent!
First of all are to mention of course Sergei Vassiliev and Moritz Karl. With
their assortment they could open a little fair by their own. Show cases
filled with rarest falls, they had, so that even a French fall specialist
almost missed a good slice of Chantonnay because it was buried under so many
museum pieces there.
As always I have to emphasize their ability to cut extremely thin slices -
e.g. they had mm-thin Fukang slices and the huge olivines were absolutely
undamaged - and for those masterpieces they asked only the normal
Fukang-price. The second master-cutter is veteran dealer Mr.Eger, who is
specialized more in irons and additionally in jewellery.

Bruno & Carine brought this time also much more historical specimens to the
fair as usually. But, please forgive me, as a Bavarian I was most impressed
by the Bi?re de Mars they brewed, - "de Mars" means a somewhat stronger
beer, which is seethed in March - though their beer contains some dust of a
real Martian meteorite!

Peter K?mmel brought aside others several German locales - I (and others)
missed a very affordable priced Obernkirchen. Phillipe Thomas had several
good sized fresh Bensours, which are meanwhile difficult to find. He was
often assisted by historical fall collector Laurent Jaworski. Author and
collector Pierre-Marie P?l? was there with his books and interesting micros.
Mme Anne Black had several rikers on the table, Svend already lauded her
choice - she showed me photos from their stall, she usually is running at
US-fairs and I was really impressed - impossible to ship all that to Europe.
Svend forgot to mention a good-sized pedigree original Acapulco on Anne's
table as well as one of the neatest Holbrooks I ever saw. It was just big
enough to carry its Monnig number!

The highlights for the iron lovers:
The big Bear Creek slice I mentioned was sold, as well as our Brenham, which
I recently used for a little quiz here on the list.
Sikhotes were missing this year, only a big chunk I found half covered under
a table, I guess it was sold to the table's owner. Would estimate that it
had at least 50kgs? In the first room a huge Muonionalusta individual was
sitting on the table, warning the visitors, that meteorite collecting is
dangerous, because it was heavy enough to cause a hernia, if one would be
able to lift it.
Hans Campo Koser was a phenomenon, always laughing and relaxed jumping
around although he had to lug his ton of irons at 30?C+ the spiral staircase
upstairs.
A good sized La Primitiva I found on a Suisse table as well as some strange
installations with irons at Marc Jost.
Karl/Vassiliev, Gren, Eger had this time the largest assortment of different
iron names.
Gibeon, as it was to expect, was almost gone. Mr. Koenig from Germany had a
few left and also Andi and me brought some kilo pieces with us.
Marcin Cimala not to forget had an excellent regmaglypted Morasko, a rarity,
on the table. I have severe doubts about the South Polish cuisine, as he's
always so slim, and poor Marcin carried his newest heavy invention to
Ensisheim, his special saw with micrometer screw.

The consignment vitrines were well filled, some exclusively with huge
tektites, from the meteorite I kept in mind Christian Anger's elegant new
fall from Nigeria, Maigatari-Danduma, and a reasonable priced slice from the
new hexahedrite Huaytiquina from Argentina.

A lot of new faces visited the show, among them the next dealer's generation
as e.g. Mirko Graul or Stephan "the pendant" Decker - will be a hard
challenge next year for Zelimir to place them all, because I'm sure they are
hot for a table next year! And also many other visitors, who came there for
the first time will mark the date in next year's calendar as Kazimir
Mazurek, the reknown collector from Poland, who organizes educational
exhibitions with his collections in Poland and now the first specialized
meteorite fair there. Nadin and Thomas Grau, the finders of the first
Neuschwanstein stone
enjoiyed the fair too and showed around a cast of the marvellous oriented
200g Villalbeto they recovered. The US-collectorship was represented this
year by Anne Black, Moni Waiblinger, Jim Strope, Mike Farmer and Dave Vestus
Schultz,
next year Zelimir should welcome at least as twice as much
US-representantives, I guess. Stephane Decker reported me, that a second
hotel is planned to be built in Ensisheim and with air condition, so no
excuses anymore!
Neither for those, who fear, that those strange people on the show and
boring stones would be an unreasonable demand for the patience of their
partners - it's a lovely scenery, the surroundings has a lovely landscape
and invites the visitors to cultural trips, weather is always favourable,
food is good
and finally the show is known for meteoritic jewelery too.
Certainly the best creations and design offers Slawomir Derecki, a
professional jeweller with sophisticated pieces of highest technical quality
and the finest moldavite carvings you'll find at Thomas Dehner's table.
No reason for moaning! Unlike meteorites, moldavites were used since
centuries for jewellery purposes and Thomas is of course a moldavite
specialist, who never would touch a natural shaped specimen appropriate to
let a collector's heart jump for his carvings.
Huh, he crafted a lot of moldavite animals - have you ever seen a coati made
of moldavite??

Although several wellknown dealers shortly had to cancel their tables, the
organisators had no problems to fill up the gaps with other exhibitors,
so that Ensisheim is on the best way to be one of the biggest meteorite
events on the globe and next year the Regence Palace will be already to
small for the show.
Here I have to scold Zelimir, as I can't find nowhere the names of those
friendly helpers and organisators who help theshow being always such an
overwhelming success!

A word about prices. Some said, that this year's price level raised compared
to last time and that they couldn't find so many attractive prices anymore.
I don't share this opinion - I really had to brace myself not to reinvest
all my revenues from the show in material for resale, thus it couldn't have
been so bad :-)

Wow, now some really bad Chicago-style - what we acquired and never will let
go again (until the day after tomorrow).
Just here on my desk I have sitting a huge, but thin fullslice of the
Boguslavka hexahedrite fall, with true fusion crust, larger inclusions,
complete reheated rim, Neumann lines in 4 direction and interesting bright
halos from the etch around the inclusion, where I suppose the Ni-content is
lower, 638grams.
Well and a razor-thin slice of the historic Staelldalen with a copy of the
museum label in Stockholm - it has a huge shock-melt part, it would be a sin
to break it down, although the ebay-enthusiasts would overpay micros.
For 60Euros/g I'll let it go!
A little Clebourne..
And finally an additional 300g piece of the fresh NWA 2889, the fancy
L/LL3-6, Stefan Ralew could identify - if it won't be sold in St.Marie, we
offer the entire stone at 6Euro/g for a quick-sale or later slices at 15/g.

Happiest man in Ensisheim was the Kebab-man.

That was my short account of Ensisheim.
Now we have to wait for pictures!
Martin

PS: Sorry for orthographical mistakes and bad English. Thermometer shows
32?C, I go now to chill out with a cold drink and a soccer match on
TV...Byeee!



 


 





-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces_at_meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Dr.
Svend Buhl
Gesendet: Montag, 19. Juni 2006 00:06
An: meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: [meteorite-list] Ensisheim Meteorite show - brief account

Good evening folks,

inquiring minds wanted to know so I take the liberty to offer a brief
account on what was going on on in Ensisheim.

We arrived late friday evening just in time to witness the culmination of a
red wine taste celebrated by a mixed US-Moroccan-German table in the back
yard of La Couronne hotel. Mike Farmer, Mohammed, Dave Schulz, Andi Gren,
Harald Strehlik and Jim Strope shared a number of adventures jumping from
Tokio to Tucson to Las Vegas to the Hamburger Reeperbahn and to some other
bizarre coordinates that slipped through my memory.

The next day presented a concentration of cosmic matter of unseen density in

the historic town hall. People rushed in the exhibition hall like sharks in
a feeding frenzy. For some dealers the show paid off within the first hours.

The competion was massive.

About five or six tables backed up by the Erfoud, Midelt and Zagora
commection were completely focussed on NWAs, most of them uncut. This meant
a lot of work for Marcin who had set up his saw in the yard. As I stepped
by, a croud gathered around the lucky buyer of a freshly cut NWA that
suspiciously resembled a diogenite.

Classic locations were presented in lower quantities, at least that was my
impression. Almost no Sikhotes, just here and there a few, very few Gibeons,

only a handful of Tazas. Campos of course were the exception. Hans Koser,
the king of Campos, had about fifty on his table, beside some nice Uruacu
individuals representing his recent finds. As a surprise he brought two
large slices of the new Brazil meteorite Santa Vitoria do Palmar
(provisionary) with him. That material was offered for 5 EUR /gm.

Beside the planetary and achondritic rarities displayed on the tables of
Mike Farmer, Marcin, Martin Altmann, Stefan Ralew (who was honoured and
accepted as a new guardian of the Ensisheim meteorite)and the other usual
suspects, the tables of Hanno Strufe and J. Nauber need to be mentioned. J.
Nauber displayed a magnificent >2 gm fragment of Chasigny and an
exceptionally well prepared 12gm slice of a striking lunar regolith breccia.

But the killer was a 32 gm slice of a newly classified diogenite that was
unlike any other I have seen. The yellowish slice looked like an assembly of

humongous centimeter sized pyroxene crystals embedded in a Thai curry
colored matrix spiced with distinct green olivine sparks. Another piece of
exceptional beauty was a yet unclassified meteorite displayed by Andi Gren,
that has chances to enter the Bulletin as the next bencubinite. The creme de

la creme of rare historic US-localities could be found on the table of Anne
Black, I'am convinced her asortment represented at least one third of the
Texas and New Mexico localities.

Compared to the recent years only few tables were set up by Russian dealers.

Surprisingly and in contrast to the general opinion regarding the recent
Oman issues there is still fresh material coming out of Oman. Of exceptional

quality were some heavily shocked and very fresh looking Eucrites from the
Dhofar region. The jet black crust just coated by a fine layer of caliche
twenty potatoe sized individuals lay on a table - a beautiful sight.

The 1st day ended with the traditional festival, powered by the
Meteor-brewery and the local accordion orchestra. Just in time after a
beaaitiful and hot sunshiny day a deluvian drove everybody into the large
tents where the party continued until the early morning. While one half of
the accordion orchestra continued to play under the portico a group of four
players seperated into the tent and started to battle their opponents. It
was the trumpets of Jericho against the trumpets of the Last Judgement. The
sound was so tremendous, Manfred Dannapfel was scared the olivines may fall
out of his newly acquired Fukang pallasite.

There is much more to tell and those actors I did not mention may forgive
me, as this account is just an impression and by no means representative.
I'am sure others will share there stories and pictures as well.

best regards

Svend

www.niger-meteorite-recon.de







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Received on Tue 20 Jun 2006 08:37:08 AM PDT