[meteorite-list] meteorites sold from Europe, not as described

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2013 15:04:35 +0200
Message-ID: <003701ce5ec8$96ab6c50$c40244f0$_at_de>

Hi Jason,

as told, I won't discuss that until perhaps in 3 weeks.
Last year I almost bought the farm, therefore I have no fervor anymore to
take part in such kind of discussions.
I experience once some years ago in Germany a really unbelievable dirty
rumpus against me, which dissolved first in a little cloud of dust and than
in smooth zero. There I still allowed myself to let me a nerves-cancer grow.
But now I learned, it's not worth time and effort. So sorry for the popcorn
seller, I will stay out. Especially from silly dealers' fights.

I swapped as a collector for decades, I sold so many thousands specimens, I
can't remember to have received a single doubt or complaint about
authenticity.

The labels are a nice extra, the persons and the source we acquired the
specimens from have zero to do with contemporary meteorite market. And
anyway, at those prices we offered them, we could have also thrown the
labels in the dustbin before, and they would have sold fast.

Just a request came in from - no offense meant - a veteran collector of
broad experience, in whom I trust more to rate the specimen, than in your
tele-diagnosis-skills, asking whether the Estherville would be free again
now.

So it's quite simple and valid not only for us, but for anyone wanting to
buy a meteoritic specimen:
If you have doubts in the specimen or in the seller: Just don't buy.

And these were my last cents
in that non-affair.
Martin


-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Jason Utas [mailto:meteoritekid at gmail.com]
Gesendet: Samstag, 1. Juni 2013 14:23
An: Martin Altmann; Meteorite-list
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] meteorites sold from Europe, not as described

"If you take Bondoc, the specimen numbers are absolutely consistent with all
the numbers of the Huss-Bondocs offered by Geoff Notkin, or at Arnaud in the
Tricottet Collection or on Murray?s fine new collection site or those Peter
Marmet showed us."

Yes, but the rear (and cut face of it) look like slag compared to other
Bondocs on the market.

http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0&_nkw=bon
doc+meteorite&_sacat=0&_from=R40

There are a variety of textures, but none so porous, and the knobbly back
and metal distribution look rather like slag. Such observations are not
conclusive, but...meh.

I'd return or ditch the material.

Regards,
Jason

www.fallsandfinds.com


On Sat, Jun 1, 2013 at 5:05 AM, Martin Altmann <altmann at meteorite-martin.de>
wrote:
> Hi Mike and all,
>
>
> it?s really always sad, to experience, what internet did to some,
> regarding communication, couth and manners.
> As told yesterday to you, as you are obviously not content with the
> specimen, we offered you to send in back and to refund you.
> Your temper and your readiness to doom and damn each and everyone in
> public, as soon as an opportunity shows up, is legendary on that list
> here, as the archives tell manifold and that behavior caused so many
> new collectors to turn their backs on to their new hobby, when they
> read your endless flame wars here on the list, because they had
> imagined meteorite collecting more august than to witness brawls on the
fish-market.
>
> Here you can observe a difference about Andi?s and my notion of the
> meteorite scene, we never took advantage in trying to badmouth you,
> when you sold e.g. a ?Bensour? of 85g to S.A. which landed with your
> label at M.V., who asked you again and you identified it without
> doubts as Bensour, but after he cut it, it turned out to be H and rather a
Bassikonou.
>
> To the specimens.
> They originally stem from an old private collection from Hungary. A
> collection from pre-desert times.
> As you might remember even from the times, when you were still
> peddling with your little bag with your sales inventory from client to
> client, in former times, the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s ? the idea of
> ?pedigree?-collecting wasn?t born yet, the fascination emanating from
> the specimens themselves, the fact that they were meteorites, was for
> the collectors overwhelming enough, so that they did not need the
> little extra-boost of having a written note, from whom they had
> acquired them (because they knew it anyway). Hence they were proud on
> the specimens as they were now their specimens, so they wrote their
> own labels and threw often the labels of the sellers/source away.
> I don?t know how many specimens you acquired from private collections
> of these times, but you will agree, that the majority of such
> specimens comes without any label or they come with the label of the
> collector, and we at least had dozens of cases, where the old original
> label was preserved, but where the collector had cut off the part with
> the name of the dealer or the museum.
> Here with these two specimens of Estherville and Bondoc, it was a
> luck, that the labels ? why the collector enlarged and laminated once
> them we don?t know, maybe for his collection filing box ? gave the
> hint, where the collector once had acquired them from.
> They were Huss specimens. And Huss at that time wasn?t the glorified
> successor of Nininger, he was nothing else than a dealer for his
> contemporaries, just like today, a Hupe, a Haiderer or a Cottingham for
us.
>
> If you take Bondoc, the specimen numbers are absolutely consistent
> with all the numbers of the Huss-Bondocs offered by Geoff Notkin, or
> at Arnaud in the Tricottet Collection or on Murray?s fine new
> collection site or those Peter Marmet showed us.
> Btw. none of these is listed in the both Huss-catalogues, none of
> these got a number painted on the surface by Huss.
> (We would have expected you to know that, as U.S.-expert)
>
> As told, we are convinced of the authenticity of the specimens, as
> well as those esteemed list members, who had them already in their hands.
> And as it is our policy, we offer always a return to our private buyers.
> So thank you Anne, Jeff and Mike for your efforts, to keep the ?Market?
> clean, but we don?t see yet any reason for hysteria.
> (Aside from the likeliness, that we after 33 years of meteorite
> collecting and 10+ years meteorite dealing, would have nothing better
> to do, than to forge Esthervilles and Bondocs and to fake a legend, to
> sell them at those cheapest prices we did).
>
> However, and there you most probably will agree, we see no sense in a
> written theoretical discussion here on the list, but like it the sober
> way.
> You?ll bring the Estherville to Ensisheim, we got so many requests for
> that very specimen and there are so many experts, who will identify it
> as that, what it is, that we won?t be in no way reluctant or shy to
> show the specimen to each and everyone, who wants.
> Therefore we will adjourn the further theatre, if you don?t mind,
> until 3 weeks.
>
>
> Martin & Andi
>
>
>
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Received on Sat 01 Jun 2013 09:04:35 AM PDT