[meteorite-list] Personal Thoughts

From: Adam Hupe <raremeteorites_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon May 8 14:08:11 2006
Message-ID: <004b01c672ca$5634d0e0$6401a8c0_at_c1720188a>

You are absolutely correct in this statement but it doesn't only apply to
NWA material. For example; How much Park Forest was reported? A lot of it
was found after it was published in the Meteoritical Bulletin including the
Main Mass. How much Tatahouine is out there? Nobody knows for sure. I am
afraid there is no realistic way to achieve perfection when it comes to
TKWs.

Adam

----- Original Message -----
From: "almitt" <almitt_at_kconline.com>
To: <meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Monday, May 08, 2006 10:47 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Self Proclaimed Pairings Issues
(SPPI)/PersonalThoughts


> Greetings to all,
>
> There is another unfortunate side effect to the way specimens were
> collected in the NWA region. To me (an this is only my opinion) there
> has been a misrepresentation of true total weights by the finders along
> with dealers buying material. It is my understanding that often when
> material was collected at a NWA site, that it is/was kept separate and
> the "found" material represented a certain weight for that find. A
> dealer might buy a portion of that material say for example a 800 gram
> stone and leave the remaining say for example 4,200 grams for other
> buyers. The dealer of the 800 gram stone cuts the material and sends it
> off to be classified and given a number. After the specimen is then
> acknowledged with a class and given a number the dealer then offers this
> stone for sale with a total weight of 800 grams.
>
> The crime in this (per my example) is there is an additional 4,200 grams
> that were part of that fall. Buyers thinking they are buying what is
> only 800 grams of material are really being sold a number with a total
> weight 800 that matches 5 kilos of material, and making their material 6
> times more common. One only has to look at the bulletins to see the
> large variety of various classes and high number of "rare" classes
> found. Obviously some of these are unique falls and possibly different
> material. HOWEVER, there are a great number of specimens that are paired
> (whether we know it or not and whether they are ever properly paired or
> not). If this doesn't show anything else, it should show the importance
> of proper collecting procedures so material can be properly cataloged
> and known. It is one reason why I haven't bought as many NWA specimens
> as I would like.
>
> While I am glad that there is new and unique material available for all
> of us, there is a lot of problems on the way items were collected, total
> weights and some dealers not informing buyers of possible paired
> material from the source they bought from.
> Sadly in the end this is about money, controlling the market and making
> you competition look bad. I think if dealers had worked together that
> the whole NWA fiasco might have yielded a better understanding of the
> true amount of falls and unique material from that region.
>
> (disclaimer) I'm not suggesting any of the debaters on this subject are
> guilty of what I have mentioned, rather it is a statement of one of the
> problems that I see with the collecting of NWA specimens and how they
> are collected, purchased and so on. Maybe some of the guilty will chime
> in to defend their bad practices. All my best to the rest!
>
> --AL Mitterling
>
>
> Adam Hupe wrote:
>
> The weight is recorded under a particular number so using nomenclature
that
> applies to an official or provisional meteorite to describe another will
> only serve to make these weight entries inaccurate.
>
>
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Received on Mon 08 May 2006 02:07:56 PM PDT