[meteorite-list] Misabled/ poorly advertized "meteorites"

From: Michael Farmer <mike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2013 06:45:35 -0700
Message-ID: <F39AFD75-5D38-4929-8B9B-A52E7C9D9A26_at_meteoriteguy.com>

I was looking at the sale on my iPhone when I made the purchase. I never considered that Martin would pass me a fake label through his hands knowingly. I was busy and it was not a major purchase so I didn't look carefully enough. You can never say that this plastic modern label suggest in any way that these are AML pieces.
However I am dead serious about my collection and the integrity of this business. As a dealer in meteorites, the loss of trust in material is the most dangerous thing that could happen. If we don't remove these fakes from the market, we are in trouble.
I dont care who made it, but I can't believe Martin would ever sell such things.
Michael Farmer
 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 1, 2013, at 4:54 AM, Jason Utas <meteoritekid at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hm. I said as much when I saw the Bondoc label on facebook some days
> ago. My comment describing the issue with the label has since been
> removed by Martin.
>
> The labels are computer-printed (notice the bottom of every "g"
> missing on the Bondoc label) and the font and underlining is wrong for
> AML labels. The pictured labels even use the typical European " , "
> instead of a " . " when describing the weights of the specimens [
> xxx,x grams ]. And then there's the glossy paper...
>
> Painfully obvious fakes, probably made in Europe given the punctuation.
>
> I wonder where they came from...and why my observations were not only
> ignored, but erased.
>
> Jason
>
>
>
> www.fallsandfinds.com
>
>
> On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 9:39 PM, Michael Farmer <mike at meteoriteguy.com> wrote:
>> I'm pretty sure the piece sold as Estherville is not a meteorite as well. It certainly does not match up with my other Estherville pieces.
>> I would like to know where this material originated. The labels are fake, and I am highly disappointed that this stuff has entered the market.
>>
>> Michael Farmer
>>
>> Sent from my iPad
>>
>> On May 31, 2013, at 9:24 PM, "Jeff Kuyken" <info at meteorites.com.au> wrote:
>>
>>> Hi Mike, all,
>>>
>>> As an Aussie, I can say with 100% absolute certainty that this isn't
>>> Murchison. It's not even close. In fact, I'm actually wondering it's a
>>> meteorite at all as it looks more like some type of porphyritic rock. The
>>> only meteorite I have seen that looks even remotely like this would be a CV3
>>> dark inclusion. But the rectangular fragment on the back side doesn't bode
>>> well for a chondritic meteorite either. It would be easier to tell
>>> in-person.
>>>
>>> Cheers,
>>>
>>> Jeff
>>>
>>>
>>> -----Original Message-----
>>> From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
>>> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Michael
>>> Farmer
>>> Sent: Saturday, 1 June 2013 12:52 PM
>>> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>>> Subject: [meteorite-list] Misabled/ poorly advertized "meteorites"
>>>
>>> Martin,
>>>
>>> I am sorry but this IS NOT Murchison, and the Estherville IS NOT
>>> Estherville.
>>> I emailed you regarding the Murchison and the fact that the photos clearly
>>> show an NWA type old carbonaceous chondrite only minutes after you posted to
>>> the list, and got no response.
>>> Anyone who has ever laid eyes on Murchison knows that it does not have
>>> desert varnish on the outside, nor white chondrules and CAI's on a CV3
>>> matrix.
>>> I feel sorry for whoever got burned on that one. You advertised the low
>>> price, I guess it is low because it is not Murchison.
>>>
>>> anyone reading this, feel free to speak up and tell us how this "Murchison"
>>> looks compared to real Murchison.
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Murchison_8_13_g_004.JPG
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Murchison_8_13_g_003.JPG
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Murchison_8_13_g_001.JPG
>>>
>>>
>>> I bought the Estherville which you claim is from American Meteorite
>>> Laboratory.
>>> I assumed since you advertised and showed a label that it was real, I was
>>> reading my email on an iphone while at the Laboratory in ASU, I showed the
>>> photo of the "Murchison" to the people in the lab who just laughed.
>>> My spider senses were not in order obviously because I went ahead and paid
>>> for the Estherville. I received it today, and it is NOT Estherville, I am
>>> pretty certain it is not a meteorite. The crust looks fake, or slaggy. I
>>> have more than 50 pieces of Estherville all from British Museum and
>>> Smithsonian, and this isn't close. Furthemore the lable is nothing more than
>>> a printed piece of paper laminated.
>>> I have the Nininger and Huss collections of meteorites books, and
>>> Estherville under Nininger is #42, Huss is H230. Again, some homework on my
>>> part would have caused me to not purchase this piece, but the price was good
>>> and I thought it would sell fast (I bought it in seconds). It is a firm
>>> reminder that something too cheap to be true, isn't!
>>>
>>> You piece has no number on the stone (
>>> Nininger and Huss both would have matched the number on the label and
>>> painted it on the stone).
>>> And the AML number on the fake label is not matched up to their normal
>>> numbers (yours is (2) 680.501. This is not a Nininger or Huss number
>>>
>>> You claim in your email (attached with this one below for all to read), that
>>> these pieces have their "passports" IE American Meteorite Laboratory labels
>>> as provenance, yet you deliver to me a fake printed laminated label done on
>>> a computer.
>>> Martin, this is NOT PROVENANCE, this is pretty much outright FRAUD!
>>>
>>> I know you have been doing meteorites for a while, and I know Murchison is
>>> easily one of the easiest meteorites to identify, so I have to question what
>>> is going on when such a false piece can pass the hands of such an
>>> experienced seller?
>>> This Estherville is not an Estherville, it is not a Nininger or Huss piece
>>> as advertised, and I do not think it is even a meteorite.
>>> I put in a request for refund via paypal, and now I am making the same
>>> request publically.
>>> I don't know where you got these but you got burned.
>>>
>>> I will deliver it by hand in Ensisheim or ship from Germany on the 19th when
>>> I am back in Europe. Please refund my money and I will close the case with
>>> paypal.
>>>
>>> Michael Farmer
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Below is the original ad saying these had AML documentation. I received a
>>> newly printed fake AML label. If you print it, it is NOT am AML label and to
>>> say it is a document is a clear fraud!.
>>>
>>> ____________________________________________________________________________
>>> ____________________________________________________________________________
>>> ___________________________________________Dear Collectors,
>>>
>>> today we want to accelerate especially the heartbeat of the lovers of
>>> documented historic specimens,
>>> in setting up for sale two of such, which would be without doubt also very
>>> remarkable,
>>> if they wouldn't be accompanied by their passports of provenience, the
>>> labels of the
>>> American Meteorite Laboratory.
>>>
>>> The American Meteorite Laboratory (AML) was founded in 1960 in Westminster,
>>> Colorado by H.H.Nininger's daughter Margaret
>>> and her husband Glenn Huss, to reestablish and continue the work of her
>>> father with his American Meteorite Museum,
>>> which he had finally to shut down for financial reasons in 1953.
>>> The AML had such an outreach in the institutional and private meteorite
>>> scene, that it served even as an eponym for the meteorite dealers of the
>>> following generation, like e.g. the Suisse Meteorite Laboratory and the
>>> Bavarian Meteorite Laboratory.
>>>
>>> Instead of giving you here the hundredth instant-biography of Nininger or
>>> Huss, we rather like to honor:
>>> The women! Who so undeservedly are standing small and faint behind the
>>> gloriole of their husbands,
>>> who never would have achieved that, they are celebrated for, if there hadn't
>>> been the support by the passion, the patience, the knowledge and the special
>>> abilities of their wives.(see also post scriptum).
>>>
>>> Therefore you get here for reading the obit for Margaret Huss, who died in
>>> 2007:
>>> http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_5878113
>>>
>>>
>>> Now to the exhibits:
>>>
>>> BONDOC.
>>>
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Bondoc_244_g_004.JPG
>>>
>>> Bondoc was one of the largest coups ever of the Niningers.
>>> The story of the adventurous recovery is told in one of Al Mitterling's
>>> "Nininger Moments":
>>> http://kuerzer.de/AlBondy
>>>
>>> Unfortunately the large slices cut from the huge main mass turned out to be
>>> everything else than stable
>>> and they crumbled and disintegrated to the harder iron nodules, manifold
>>> abundant in Bondoc, in larger silicate inclusions and crumbs of rust.
>>>
>>> The AML-Bondoc offered now is pretty massive and stable, looks like to be an
>>> endcut,
>>> and belongs to the iron-rich mesosideritic looking specimens, which seems to
>>> be scarcer than the preserved iron nodules and eucritic/silicate-inclusions.
>>>
>>> 244 gram it has!
>>>
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Bondoc_244_g_001.JPG
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Bondoc_244_g_002.JPG
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Bondoc_244_g_003.JPG
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Bondoc_244_g_004.JPG
>>>
>>> As you can see, in the last decades it had developed here and there some
>>> rust on the cut face.
>>> According to your wishes, we can re-polish it.
>>> (We have let it now as it is, because we know that most pedigree-collectors
>>> like their specimens to be as original as possible, also to keep the
>>> accordance of the specimen's weight with the given weight on the label).
>>>
>>>
>>> The second AMLer is a truly wonderful
>>>
>>> ESTHERVILLE
>>>
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Estherville_111_g_005.JPG
>>>
>>> We guess, that Estherville doesn't need any introduction anymore here on the
>>> list,
>>> as it is the third largest observed fall of the U.S.
>>>
>>> Nevertheless it seems pretty difficult to find nowadays still entire
>>> individuals, better than the also hard to get popular nuggets.
>>> Here to your delight we have now a perfectly intact individual, which by all
>>> means would be also without the old label a premium collection-piece for
>>> your cabinet.
>>> Note that it has not only the thinner rougher fusion crust, but also the fat
>>> and bulgy one with bubbles from outgassing where the silicate constituents
>>> had been molten.
>>>
>>> 111 grams it has
>>> (and Nininger/Huss/AMM/AML-fans know, that Esthervilles with AML-Labels are
>>> so much rarer than the Bondocs).
>>>
>>> Enjoy!
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Estherville_111_g_001.JPG
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Estherville_111_g_002.JPG
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Estherville_111_g_003.JPG
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Estherville_111_g_004.JPGhttp://www.meteori
>>> tenhaus.de/img/Estherville_111_g_005.JPG
>>>
>>>
>>> Prices:
>>> Bondoc 244g $1350
>>> Estherville 111g $1387
>>>
>>> Both together: $2580
>>>
>>>
>>> And for your patience, to have read the advertizing until that point, a
>>> third goodie:
>>>
>>> MURCHISON AT BELOW 100$/g
>>>
>>> All said about Murchison.
>>> The recent 5 years it got so sought after, that the standard price, even
>>> for
>>> larger stones, has established at 150$/g
>>> (and even 200-250$/g for minor amounts here and there and on ebay). Below
>>> you won't get any anymore.
>>>
>>> Here now a fragment, naked without crust and grinded on one side,
>>> At $800 with a weight of 8.13grams - which is 98.4$/g.
>>>
>>> The label on the back is looking familiar, but we didn't get it, from whom
>>> it could be.
>>> Maybe you can identify it? The font is outdated today, print looks like to
>>> stem from the time, when the printers still had needles.
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Murchison_8_13_g_004.JPG
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Murchison_8_13_g_001.JPG
>>> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Murchison_8_13_g_003.JPG
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> Now time to let the games begin!
>>>
>>> The Meteorite House
>>> Hamburg - Munich
>>> A.Gren
>>> M.Kurschat
>>> M.Altmann
>>> ______________________________________________
>>>
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>>> Meteorite-list mailing list
>>> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>>>
>>>
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>>>
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>> ______________________________________________
>>
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Received on Sat 01 Jun 2013 09:45:35 AM PDT