[meteorite-list] My last comment on Hammer Question (hopefully)

From: Shawn Alan <photophlow_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 17 Jun 2010 19:48:54 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <397325.34393.qm_at_web35403.mail.mud.yahoo.com>

Hi Jason and Listers :)

Jason, I did get your point and I think your confusing your points because what you keep saying has no purpose from a collecting stand point. Ill explain.... you said from your last post.....
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"All I'm saying is that the word itself is unnecessary. It takes a
detail about a meteorite and generalizes it - if the stone hit a
building, it's a hammer, if it hit a road, it....may be a hammer, if
it hit a car, it's a hammer."
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To generalize is unnecessary? I am confused. So for me to put?something into a category is unnecessary? Well I guess it would be safe to say lets dismiss historic falls as a generalized term, or how about a whole stone or a slice. The fact of the matter is from a collectors stand point these categories, or?in your case Jason, generalization, are there for a?collectability purposes.
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You keep confusions these collectible terms as unnecessary from a scientific stand point. That is true, science doesn't care if its a historic fall, or if its a hammer, or if?its a hammer stone, or in your case, if its a whole stone. What science cares about is the classification, where the meteorite came from, or the chemical makeup.
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However, from a historical stand point and collectors stand point, science and history plays a very big role in ones collection and how they see fit to collect meteorites. If I only collect hammer falls and hammer stone then, I want to know if the stone hit an animal, or human, or artifact, or a man made object and will determine if its worth ?being in my collection. Or in your case you collect whole stones. Or someone else only may?collect historic falls. ?
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Collecting is subjective from the individuals taste and wants. There is no science behind it, only a rich history , the stories that meteorites tell people from where they have been. Or??the previous owner, or if the meteorite had hit something or not. To have a category for meteorites that have hit an artifact, human, animal, man made object is important in the collectability stand point of meteorite collecting.
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Many people on the list and around the world use the term hammer stone/ hammer fall to decipher a meteorite from a collective stand point. If we didn't have these two terms, which by you its seems generic and lessons the value of meteorites, it would be hard to put this type of fall into a sub category from a collectability stand point.
?
Shawn Alan
IMCA 1633
eBaystore
?http://shop.ebay.com/photophlow/m.html?_nkw=&_armrs=1&_from=&_ipg=&_trksid=p4340
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[meteorite-list] My last comment on Hammer Question (hopefully)
Jason Utas meteoritekid at gmail.com
Thu Jun 17 17:15:18 EDT 2010

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Michael, All,
You're just getting hung up in the terminology. A collector who
collects meteorites that have hit man-made objects is fine by me. But
when people start going around using the word "hammer" to describe
such stones - and people are taking the liberty of using terms like
"hammer-fall stones" to sell stones that haven't hit anything other
than the ground...you're just asking for trouble.

All I'm saying is that the word itself is unnecessary. It takes a
detail about a meteorite and generalizes it - if the stone hit a
building, it's a hammer, if it hit a road, it....may be a hammer, if
it hit a car, it's a hammer.

It's not like we're streamlining things by applying this one term -
we're just losing information, and while you say the term "hammer" is
well-defined, I would like to point out the debate on-list about the
'hammer status' of a meteorite that hits a dirt road or a
plowed/cleared field. After all, a dirt road is about as much of a
man-made structure as a leveled and cleared field. Same goes for a
dirt dam.
So a "hammer" is a meteorite that has fallen on anything that isn't
virgin land? I mean...things seems to be a little vague right now.

Your definition:

"Hammer:" any individual which is part of a hammer fall in which
one or more of the individuals struck an artifact, animal or human.

Define a "human artifact." Would a road or plowed field be included
in your definition? Or does it have to be a smaller sort of tangible
object that's been altered by humanity in some way? What if a
meteorite hits something like a rose bush in my yard, here in LA.
That rose bush wouldn't be here if it weren't for people, and if its
remains were excavated from the archaeologic remains of my house in
several thousand years, it would be treated as an artifact,
because...it is one. That rose is the product of hundreds of years of
selective breeding, and wouldn't exist in this climate if it weren't
for my grandmother, who planted it, and us, who water it.

Or how about the meteorite that hits a plowed field? Again, you're
looking at a piece of land that has been substantially altered by the
hand of man - it has been leveled, cleared, and fertilized for decades
in all likelihood. That piece of land has undergone more alteration
than the dirt berm upon which an Ash Creek stone was found - that was
just a bunch of dirt piled into a hill.

Or how about a dirt road - that's just a strip of land that's been
scraped over by a bulldozer. Much less altered than a plowed field.

Again, when you start using generic terms to describe things, you lose
specificity. When I say that people shouldn't collect "hammers," I'm
not critiquing your collection of meteorites that have hit man-made
things.
I'm criticizing your use of a term that takes the *individual* history
of each stone and makes it "a hammer."

Chiang Kahn no longer hit a boat - it's a "hammer."
Sylacouga no longer clipped Mrs. Hodges - it's a "hammer."
And Peekskill didn't hit a car - it's a "hammer."

Now do you see what I'm saying? There's no reason to start calling
things "hammer" and try to define a new term that is subjective, no
matter how much you say it's not.

Such practices can be useful - when I see a meteorite, it wouldn't
help me for someone to say that, for example,
NWA 004 is a meteorite with Fayalite (mol%): 22.2 and Ferrosilite
(mol%): 18.6 (12.6-20.5).
I can read that, but what means more to me is that because of that
information, it is classified as an L4.
L4 is what means something to me - not the Fa/Fs numbers. Maybe they
will in a few years, but not right now.

So when I see you making up a new term to describe something that is
already very easily described and doesn't need clarification...I guess
you're free to do it, but...I don't understand why you're not just
saying "this is a stone that hit a building."

Because that seems clear enough.

Just say "it hit a boat." Or say "this one was found on the ground,
but another stone from this fall hit a building."

We'll know what that means.

And yes, Michael, there are dealers going around selling things like
Park Forest who are saying that their pieces are from a "hammer-fall"
and that the pieces that they're selling could have hit a man-made
object. Without any sort of verification, I would say that making
such claims is nothing but a cheap marketing ploy.
If you don't know where the stone that you're selling fell, don't say
that it might have hit something man-made when most stones hit nothing
but dirt.

Or are you going to sell every Junacheng you get as "maybe the stone
that fell in the woman's cooking-pot?"

Because, if so...it's just a marketing ploy.

And Shawn, you missed my point entirely. I hope this message
clarifies things.

Regards,
Jason
Received on Thu 17 Jun 2010 10:48:54 PM PDT