[meteorite-list] More damage (than the Pellisons)... Help!

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 26 Feb 2009 21:06:54 +0100
Message-ID: <003901c9984d$c60ec410$177f2a59_at_name86d88d87e2>

Hi Mike and list,

the Pellisons, I doubt that they have any remarkable effect, they are
nobodies and they are private persons.

Endless more harmful are articles like these, where in the perception of the
readers, people of an "official" status are spreading their false pretences.
Here for example they read: Caroline Smith, curator of the meteorite
collection of London's Natural History Museum,
and of course they suppose, that the - sorry - the rubbish, she's telling
has to be true, and furthermore it was an article from holy BBC.

They can't know, that Smith is relatively new in her job, so that she
probably hasn't yet the clue, that ALL of her antecessors purchased the main
load of the meteorites in her museum from meteorite dealers and from private
collectors and persons - and that they had to pay much, much, much higher
prices than what meteorites do cost today;
and that she is not able to get her stats right and to use, like everyone
else the Meteoritical Bulletins or the Bulletin Database.

http://kuerzer.de/lousyPropaganda

Read

"But Ms Smith is worried that the craze for meteorite collecting is having a
damaging effect on scientific research.

'The commercial value of meteorites has now been realized," she says. "It
has affected our work because we are now competing against private
collectors to obtain material for our research.'"

Excuse me, 80 or 90% of the meteorites in the London Nat.Hist. stem from
private persons, dealers, collectors.

In 1810, curator Koenig purchased the mineral collection of Charles Greville
for more than 1 million USD (today's money),
Parish donated them a 3.5 ton-Campo,
Curator Maskelyne bought like a fool to rival Vienna, of course from dealers
and privateers too, more than 200 locales,
and most of these specimen he bought from the mineral (and meteorite) dealer
August Krantz (1809-1872, a famous Pultusk-looter).
Next curator Fletcher was known to be a tough negotiator in buying
meteorites - the seller had to tell the price, not he.
And famous is the anecdote, when Fletcher bribed the niece of the owner of
Crumlin in buying her an organon, for her to convince her uncle to sell that
meteorite. (Well, from the last Crumlin we sold to an Irish museum, we
hardly could afford a good keyboard).
Well and then later curator Hey had a simple maxim about meteorites: Get it,
keep it. And in 1959 he bought a part of the collection from the well-known
meteorite dealer Harvey Nininger. Some say it was half of the collection,
some sources tell a third, some a fifth. (Maybe the discrepancies are
because some counted the different locales, some the number of specimens,
and some the weight). And he paid more than 1 million of today's USD.

These were only some major purchases, and an excerpt from Russel&Grady's
History of the NHM meteorite collection.
Maybe Mr.Smith should read it - and if she will go one day into the
archives, she will find what their antecessors had to pay and wherefrom they
purchased.

In the same article:
"Sadly, many collectors and so-called entrepreneurs have recently noticed
the marketable value of meteorites, and taking advantage of the poverty in
some countries and the lack of education regarding the value"

So please Ms. Smith return the nice slice of DaG 262, which is highlighted
on the BMNH pages, to the poor people of Libya.
http://kuerzer.de/corpusdelicti
Btw. what had the BMNH paid for that slice or what did they gave for
material in exchange? (and tell to your colleagues of the Smithonian, which
is mentioned in the end of the article to return their 5 specimens of DaG
262 too).
Btw, when did BMNH acquire that slice? I remember the prices of the 90ies
for DaG 262 and 400. 200,000$ a gram. Yes the meteorite prices have soared
and now the dealers have realized the commercial value, cause today you can
buy such material ar 500$ a gram.

And if we are already occupied with house-cleaning, return the SaU 005
pictured below the DaG 262 to the government of Oman, because you have no
export permit.
(Why? Because nobody had the idea, that such stuff would need an export
permit, cause nobody was interested in meteorites there.)

Mr.Smith says:
"It has affected our work because we are now competing against private
collectors to obtain material for our research."

Yah. Private meteorites activities had an effect on research:

The number of meteorite finds and falls outside Antarctica was growing from
3000 of the 200 years before to 13,000 in roughly one decade.
Samples of all of them were given for free to the institutions, enriching
and diversifying the institutional collections.
Private people multiplied the tkws of historic finds and falls in recovering
more pieces and some of the new observed falls wouldn't have been found at
all without their work.

Those finds became readily available to all scientists. The rare types among
them outnumber the rare types found in Antarctica.
And Mrs. Smith, the prices for that material are a fraction of these paid
the 200 years before. Do your homework.
The costs of Antarctic meteorites are unrivalled, they are by far the most
expensive meteorites ever.
More expensive than the commercial meteorites are those found on "official"
expeditions.
Why? The find rates are low, and they can't beat the grim sisters called
Stochastica and Statistica, who are not so generous like Mother Fortuna:
They find mainly old weathered chondrites. That material, which already 100
years ago nobody wanted to have - Henderson of the Smithonian had a
meteorite "subscription" for Nininger's finds in the early 30ies (roughly
30,000$ per year, inflation-adjusted) and was complaining that he found only
old chondrites.
That material which costs acquired on the open commercial market today less
than the tea, Mrs Smith brews, before she's spreading her weird agenda.

Here another version of the article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/6549197.stm

"They want to put a stop to the trade because they're losing valuable
material to the collectors. They also say that local scientists and museums
should have the privilege of looking after meteorites in their country of
origin."

Ya. And? What are you waiting for? It is known since the 80ies, when the
first larger amounts were found in Sahara, that the desert has many
meteorites. For more than 20 years!
What have they done in this period? How many meteorites were found in Sahara
by scientists, compared to the private sector?
Nobody detains universities or scientists to search for meteorites in the
deserts.
But if they don't do it, they have no legitimation to complain.
(O.k. Ms Smith found 2 new OCs in Australia, respect).

"so-called entrepreneurs"; "black market"; "smuggled"; "craze for meteorite
collecting"; "damaging effect"; "affected our work"; "we are now competing
against private"; "target for dealers and smugglers"; "trafficking of such
invaluable objects".

Quite a prize - for only 1 article
and a bare infamy.

First of all there is no black market. The meteorites aren't traded in dark
back rooms, but all are brought to classification, are centrally published
and transparently and open offered on the web and on the shows to everyone,
who wants to buy, including the scientists,
by normal dealers and brave tax-payers.

And a black market implicates, that something illegal is going on.

Ms Smith was co-organizer for the Casablanca conference of MetSoc.
Result was, on the Meeting it was stated, that in Morocco do NOT exist any
laws at all regarding the hunting, the ownership, the export of meteorites.

To state once again clearly: NWA meteorites are perfectly legal.

And Mike and Greg, that is much more grave, than the foolish Pellisons,
that scientists like Ms.Smith defame and criminalize collectors and dealers
and implicitly their fellow scientists in that way - and against their
better knowledge.

(So better take legal action not against the Pellisons, but against such
scientists, because of defamation or prompt them to rectification or to
apology).

Btw. Ms Smith - despite her agenda - wasn't above to connive with such (in
her opinion) a bad lot
and bought from a private US-collector the main mass of Ivuna.

http://kuerzer.de/Pharisee

Hopefully the US-collector has the paperwork, that it was once removed
legally from the country of origin....

Well, you all might think, that doesn't matter and that this would be only a
weird opinion of a single person, what ever her motivation could be...


...but the problem is, that such kind of propaganda makes waves.

Google around, you as collector will find you everywhere in the vicinity of
drug dealers, ivory hunters, weapon smugglers.

But even worse than to ride roughshod over those, who are building the basis
for that branch of science and who are delivering the main load of objects
of the research for more than 200 years now,
is that several scientists meanwhile believe that bushwah, people like Smith
talk.

Here an especially remarkable example.
Taylor discovered the new mineral hapkeite, highlight of his career,
he found it in Dhofar 280, a lunaite found and provided by private hunters.
Well and at the end of the interview he babbles, how fine it would be, that
the private hunters will be banned from Oman.
- obviously he didn't know, where his samples stem from, else he would have
demonstrated his respect for them - and so he rather blows the horn of the
lore of Schmitt, Smith et al.
http://pr.tennessee.edu/alumnus/alumarticle.asp?id=553

o.k. - that was funny,
but the impact of that agenda Smith et al. are heralding is already grave.

Honestly, the Smithonian is an important collection and the most
time-honoured institute in USA.
It is nothing else than a tragedy or better a drama,
that because of that political correctness based on the false and
unsubstantiated pretences of that kind Smith, Zipfel et al., try to
establish,
that the Smithonian has now to abstain from the desert finds!
That they aren't allowed to buy that material, which is most desirable for
research.
And this just in that short period of history, were such material is for the
first time available almost at will, that material, which led to a true
boost of meteorite science - and that in exactly that short time of history,
where such material finally cost virtually nothing anymore.

That is a break in the long meteoritic history of that institution,
That is an abandonment of the scientific task of the Smithonian meteorite
department.

And the same applies maybe even to a larger extend to the famous meteorite
department of the BMNH in London
and it's a bitter irony of fate, that this unnecessary disavowal of
tradition and obligation, where it is not sure, if it ever can be recouped,
is initiated and pursued exactly by the very curator of this institution.

(I really won't like to be in her shoes, if a later generation will value
her work. But still there is a chance to turn back).

------------

So, where is the core of the problem.

Schmitt, Zipfel, Smith, Chennaoui - they are dinosaurs.

The attempts and the cry for restrictive laws, for protectionism,
expropriation, call it like you want,
date back to a past epoch. Partially back to the 19th century.
The agenda Schmitt et al. pursue is based on the UNESCO working group on
meteorites installed in the 1960ies.
Or remember the hilarious parliament debate in London, from the 1970ies I
linked here.

In those times there existed in total a few hundreds of finds and falls.
Each year only a few single ones were added.
And the fall or the find of new meteorite in those countries, was an
extraordinary, an almost singular event.

So it is understandable, that they felt 50 years ago the urge to secure
material of new finds for the museums and the research
and it's also understandable, that some tried to get laws to oust private
finders and meteorite dealers, cause meteorites were expensive (although
tons more dollars, pounds, marks were spend by the public for meteorites
than today) - to get the stuff for free.

But these were the times before the deserts were recovered as meteorite
paradise, before private entrepreneurs and collectors found thousands and
thousands of new meteorites and dozens of new falls.

That old thinking, these old regulations are not applicable for the modern
situation. They don't meet the needs and the requirements of today's
research.

We already see in those countries, where such laws were put in force, that
they dramatically corrupt science, that they thwart the purposes they once
were made for long ago.

As told, Australia installed such laws and because they made now revision,
it is obvious, that they don't want to have any new meteorites anymore and
that they decided, that this branch of research has no relevance for them
anymore. That is a pity, but it is acceptable.

But Zipfel, Schmitt, Smith they want to lock up Oman and they want to close
down Sahara.
Could you imagine what for a disastrous impact on research and private
collecting likewise, that will have?
Libya. 6 years 1048 finds, last 7 years 45 finds.
Nothing against the Suisse teams in Oman - Oman asked the Meteoritical
Society in London not to recognize meteorites anymore, which have no export
permits - export permits are only granted still to the Suisse teams.
No material of the Suisse expeditions is allowed to be traded with other
research institutes.
Nothing against the Suisse teams, and I'm sure, that legal disaster wasn't
their intention, they are the most successful hunters among all official
expedetions,
but until they will have found so many important and rare types like the
privateers did in these 10 years, they will need one or two centuries more.

Who shall find then the meteorites in Sahara? They are the substance of that
science, more than the Antarctic finds.
Zipfel? Smith? Chennaoui? - I really like enthusiastic people,
but do you think, they could replace all the hundreds and hundreds of
unknown hunters in Sahara?

At the end still a last remark.

I'm sorry, but I have to disagree with Nicklin.
It is not about, that Canada only wanted a law, giving the universities and
museum the possibility to purchase material of new finds and falls first.
That would be perfectly agreeable...

Ooops, can't keep it, a funny digression (last one).
The Canadian participants of the UNESCO-meteorie-working-group made a price
guide, for the museums, to have a guideline in purchasing and swapping
meteorites from dealers or with other institutions - and to compensate
finders of Canadian meteorites in an adequate and fair manner...as it was
btw. a recommendation of the group.

Internet can be so cruel - here a radio interview with Herd about the Tagish
Lake fall. Was in that period of time, when they were unable to organize a
team to recover the material, cause it was so far away or the weather wasn't
pleasant or who the heck knows...
There it's said that two egg-sized specimens were found - and that "Herd
doubts that more meteorite fragments will be found"
And that they already knew, that it is a primitive carbonaceous one.

And then we can read, that the reward for those bringing more stones,
A stone!!! (not per gram) - would be 500 Canadian Dollar.

Who said - I already forgot:
"...and taking advantage of the poverty in some countries and the lack of
education regarding the value"?

 http://seagrant.uaf.edu/news/00ASJ/03.16.00_Meteorite.html

O.k. obviously that wasn't in the sense of the UNESCO-group.

Hmm and the inactivity after the fall was at the end somewhat expensive, for
research (and the Canadian taxpayer),
Cause later they had to buy material from the original finder. 0.75 million
$ for 850grams.
(the stuff was so expensive due to the laws, the failure of the Canadian
Survey to recover the material and there policity to keep the place secret,
so that also Canadian citizens couldn't help to recover material.
So all in all very few material was available to the collectors, driving the
price in unnecessarily astronomical heights).

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20060422.wxmeteorite22/BN
Story/Science/home

Never mind!
Mistakes are made to learn from them.
Now with Buzzard Colee they can redeem themselves.

O.k. back.

Problem is, that Canada, didn't made only a rule for preemption, but and
that was dangerously shortsighted - added meteorites to their UNESCO-list of
national cultural heritage.

This means in turn, that also the meteorites originating from other
countries present in Canadian collections are recognized by Canada to be
national cultural heritage of the respective countries of their origins.

And the consequence is, that all following conventions of UNESCO, like
UNIDROIT and others became applicable on these meteorites,
like for antiques, artefacts, fossils, art....cultural heritage is cultural
heritage, no exception for meteorites.

So we have already that dangerous situation, that any state can check the
inventories of the Canadian meteorite collections and can ask the
restitution or a financial compensation for all specimens, where no evidence
is supplied, that they once were legally removed from the country, where
they felt or where they found.
And that not only back to 1970, no it's applicable for at least 70 years by
law, and in most cases with out any temporal limitation.

And the problem is, that in the very most cases, there is no such proof of
legitimate origin. It isn't of interest, whether the specimens were once
bought from dealer A or B, donated by collector C or D, traded with curator
E or F - important is only, whether the removal from the country of origin
is documented and proven to be officially authorized.
And that proof most museums can't deliver.

I could go tomorrow to a provincial university here in Germany, could show,
hey - Canada National Meteorite collection has a nice Menow-slice. Want it?
And they only have to ask there, show me the papers, that it was legally
removed and exported from Germany or from the antecessor states of the
republic.
If they can't - give the cultural heritage back.

I remember, that once the regional museum in Pultusk was so sad, because
they wanted to buy the Pultusk peas I had, but they came late, cause they
haven't any pretty Pultusks in their museum.
In principle they can address at anytime to the ROM or to Alberta or
Adelaide and they will get back all Pultusks for free as a consequence of
the UNESCO laws.
But rather they should knock first on the door of Mrs.Smith in London.
London bought their Pultusks from August Krantz, a M.Farmer or Haag of his
times, who was seen soon after the fall in the strewnfield, buying all
Pultusk he could get from the locals.

I'm not kidding. We have that situation already with the arts and antiques
museums, they are plastered with requirements of restitution. Also in the
fossils branch.
And there is meanwhile a whole industry of law firms, specialized in such
cases, because it's very lucrative, cause the amount in dispute are so high.

Imagine, what could happen, if Zipfel, Smith achieve to close the deserts,
and a frustrated collector or dealer decides o.k., you're so right, let's
play according your rules - from now on I will spend my time in noble
purpose's ordinary - and I will bring all meteorites back to the states,
where they were removed from. I won't sneak around on shows like the rumors
about the Canadian shamus, I won't threat the dealers because of their
Campos,
I'll start with Adelaide, Calgary, Ontario, London, Paris, Vienna, Tokyo -
cause there is prey.

Nobody wants that. But the danger does exist
and urgently the laws and regulations have to be reassessed!


And I'm quite astonished, that almost nobody on this list, is interested in
that subject. It's crucial and essential. If Smith et al. will have success,
than we can switch off the light after 200 years of meteoritics,
then we will fall not only back to 19th century regarding the find numbers
and the prices, then the Meteoritical Society will be obsolete, we will have
only the expensive Antarctic finds and the few stuff found by universities,
mainly chondrites, meteorites will become as expensive as never before,
cause we have so many meteorite collectors more than 30, 40 years ago.
And even worse:
Those institutes not connected to the Antarctic programs will have to limit
their work only on curating and preservation of the specimens they already
have and the inventories of the major collections will be endangered by the
enforced returning of most of their specimens.

Is it that, what we all want?

Can't care for everything. We have to work. Bringing new rare types, for
NASA being able to acquire new material from Moon, which the astronauts
haven't brought back, at the usual more symbolic rates, which are a fraction
of the mite NASA is paying to ANSMET - and for people like Ms.Smith, Zipfel,
Schmitt being able to publish fine articles about the exciting stones, they
get delivered from people like us.

Best!
Martin









-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Michael
Gilmer
Gesendet: Donnerstag, 26. Februar 2009 05:22
An: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: [meteorite-list] Pelison NWA Meteorite Propaganda

Hi Dean!

I could not agree more. I ran across this site as well, in the
beginning while I was doing my homework on NWA meteorites.

While we cannot force the site down legally, we can post a rebuttal
webpage and make sure it gets ranked higher than Pelison's on
Google. I will help do this. I am not as knowledgeable about
the issue as some of you who have been doing this since the Saharan
gold rush began, so if someone will help write the content, I will
build and host the webpage. Pelison's webpage should be shown
for what it is, and each of his bogus points should be rebutted
logically in public. That way the public will have both sides of
the story and then they can make up their own minds. Anyone
willing to believe that nonsense after reading the truth is
probably beyond saving anyway. Anyone who believes that stuff is
ripe for chemtrails, black helicopters, Area-51 alien greys, and
the Unabomber was from the Pleaides.

It might be helpful if someone with artistic talent could draw up
some nice cartoons (in the same visual style as Pelison's) that
also rebuke his claims - just for effect.

Best regards and clear skies,

MikeG


.........................................................
Michael Gilmer (Louisiana, USA)
Member of the Meteoritical Society.
Member of the Bayou Region Stargazers Network.
Websites - http://www.galactic-stone.com and http://www.glassthrower.com
..........................................................

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Received on Thu 26 Feb 2009 03:06:54 PM PST