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Fake Allende

Hello everyone,

I just had an interesting if not disconcerting experience.  My wife and I were
strolling down one of our local malls tonight (she looking for jewelry; I was
trapped because we had also gone out for dinner and the mall was on our way
home) when we noticed the "antiques" and odds-and-ends dealers scattered
throughout the walkways.  Approaching display cases of comic books, china
dolls, civil war bullets, and silver spoons (just where do all those spoons
come from, anyway) I noted one case had an information card which began with
the words "Allende - Chondrite Meteorite, CV3...."

Naturally, I was curious.

I looked amongst the indian arrowheads, subway tokens, and (naturally) silver
spoons for the Allende specimens but they were nowhere to be seen.  I did
notice some chunks of blackish-grey lava near the information card so I
inquired to the lady behind the counter, "Where's the meteorite?"

Incredibly, she opens the case and hands me a piece of lava.  I looked at it
and the other walnut sized pieces in the case and respectfully told her that
what she had handed me was not a meteorite but was lava rock.  It was very
light in weight, no fusion crust, contained no chondrules or CAIs and had an
extremely vacuolar texture.  In short, lava.

Her reply was, "Well, that's what the card says."  I picked up the card,
flipped it over and discovered it was one of Bob Haag's information cards.
(Bob, if you are reading this, I know you had absolutely nothing to do with
this and they just happended to have one of your cards because of the
information on the front of it).

Has this happended to anyone else?  Has anyone else seen such meteorwrongs
being sold to an unsuspecting public?

BTW, the "stones" were $20.00 each.

-Walter Branch
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