[meteorite-list] Stolen Specimens from Iceland

From: Peter Davidson <P.Davidson_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 21 Oct 2009 09:07:00 +0100
Message-ID: <D7171847AEFC6A4893D80C75E547E27110048F_at_nmsmail02.nms2k.int>

Dear List Members

I apologise for taking you a little off-topic (like that's never
happened before!), but I would like to bring the following very
disturbing news to your attention. I know from chatting to many of you,
and I am thinking of people like Zelimir Gabelica, that not a few of you
are keen on collecting minerals, especially zeolites, so this may be of
interest to many of you out there. The message is:

"Dear Peter

Thank you for the information regarding the Meeting in Munich. Due to
teaching duties I will arrive only later in the afternoon and I am not
sure whether I can make it to the meeting.

However, I would like to ask you for a favour: I just got notice from a
Swiss geologist in Iceland (a former student of mine) that the Mineral
museum at Teigarhorn in Djupivogur (Berufjord), in the heart of the
zeolite find area, has recently been robbed and a significant number of
mineral specimens have been stolen.

http://www.mindat.org/mesg-56-156779.html

http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2009/10/17/um_500_steinum_stolid_a_
teigarhorni/ (in Icelandic)

According to this report 500 pieces valued around 120'000 US$.

Christa Feucht is collecting any information regarding this incident for
the museum there.
Christa at feucht.ch
phone +354 8659857 (Iceland)
http://geothermal.is/employees/17

It would be great if you could circulate this information among the
members and perhaps mention this during the meeting.

I hope still to make it to the meeting.

With my best regards
Beda (Hofmann)
(Natural History Museum, Bern, Switzerland)"

I would ask all of you to keep your eyes and ears open and to alert the
authorities if you hear of anything. I would also ask you to please pass
this message on to other mineral collectors, dealers and curators you
may know.

Many thanks for your attention

Peter Davidson
Curator of Minerals
National Museums Collection Centre
National Museums Scotland
242 West Granton Road
Edinburgh
EH5 1JA
Phone: +44 131 247 4283
p.davidson at nms.ac.uk
www.nms.ac.uk
Salt of the Earth: famous faces with Scottish roots, photographed by Craig Mackay. National Museum of Scotland. Opening 16 October.

www.nms.ac.uk/salt <http://www.nms.ac.uk/salt>
Received on Wed 21 Oct 2009 04:07:00 AM PDT