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Re: The Fight for Truth, Justice & the American Way, in Monahans

In a message dated 6/1/98 6:33:22 PM Central Daylight Time, eroberts@ntplx.net
writes:

<< 
 Hello list,
 
 I risk sounding like I'm beating a dead horse, but I hate seeing our
 neighbors to the north maligned this way. Canada does not keep 100% of
 everything that lands there, they do not take anything from private
 property owners. In fact, the government purchased the St. Robert
 samples found by the farmers on whose land it fell. I don't know the
 price, but understand it was very reasonable and within the range of the
 established wholesale price for similar specimens. There are controls on
 export, but no restrictions on sales within the country. I sometimes
 wonder if our concern is with export controls on Canadian citizens as
 much as it is with our inability to buy and sell Canadian meteorite
 specimens.
 
 Gene
  >>

Hello

Canada got mad because the EVIL meteorite hunter H.H. Nininger was taking too
many meteorites out of Canada and they wanted to keep that from happening.
They may have come up with the "only the commercial meteorite dealer profits
when they get meteorites" philosophy, even before NASA adopted it.

So to stop this awful injustice, they made it illegal to export meteorites.
Since about 99.9% of all meteorite scientists and collectors are from outside
Canada, they have in fact, cut off all the reasonable market and thus market
value to those meteorites.  

Hey Bernd, or anyone else out there, since about 1978 how many meteorite FINDS
(not Falls) have there been recovered from Canada?  And then find out how many
turned up between 1931 (when Nininger got his first Springwater out of the
field) and the mid '70's?   (I bet the numbers are around 1 and 30
respectively)

They are almost as proud of their highly scientific fireball chasing science
as the U.S. was of our highly successful Prairie Network that turned up the
Lost City.  But they weren't even half as successful as we were!  (And since
we only found the one meteorite, less than half, doesn't add up to much!)  But
hey, they are now keeping 100% of all new meteorites within their borders!

Anyway, a couple of years ago I asked the curator of the Canadian National
Collection that if I went up there and used some of my meteorite recovering
skills that helped me find over 3 dozen here in the States, would the
Collection be interested in buying the meteorite(s) at a reasonable wholesale
price?  He said "Of course!"  Well, a couple of weeks later I recovered
Canada's 50th meteorite (Hodgeville).  I spent a lot of money and a lot of
time getting that rock, and I asked meteorite dealer Blaine Reed, what he felt
was a reasonable wholesale price on the rock?

He gave me a price, and I sold about 1/5 of the meteorite to a collector in
Canada at that price and I asked for a slightly lower price from the National
Collection for the other 4/5.  But they refused to buy it.  They stalled for
many months and finally Blaine bought the title of the rock from me at the
price he had told me he thought was a fair wholesale price (even though the
rock stayed in Canada the whole time).  He was told by the same man who told
me he would offer a fair price, that they would work out a trade in a short
period of time.  That was over a year and a half ago, and they still have not
kept their word.  Blaine owns a rock in Canada that he will never see!

I know I will never use my recovery skills up there again!  There have to be
hundreds if not thousands of meteorites just waiting to be recovered, but why?
Would you invest your personal time and money knowing that you would never be
able to recover your expenses?  

But hey, they are happy, and at least none of the evil meteorite dealers are
getting their hands on any of the precious meteorites in Canada, (meanwhile
they are rusting away by the thousands!)  It's enough to bring a tear to your
eye!

Oh, if there are any collectors on the list that live in Canada, and they
would like to buy 4/5 of the Hodgeville from Blaine, it is for sale!  Just
email me for his number!

Steve
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