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fresh appearing Sikhote Alins

A recent message to this list raised the possibility that the large
quantity of Sikhote Alins that have appeared recently with very fresh
crusts, might have been cleaned & treated to create a blue patina that
resembled intact fusion crust.  Very fine Sikhote Alins have been pretty
scarce in the past, since they are prone to rusting.

On inquiring, I was told by several people who attended Tucson that many
(or most or all) of the Sikhote Alins that were traded at that show were
cleaned with a very fine grit, using a sand blasting type of gun.  This was
very effective in restoring an attractive appearance to the specimens.  The
original crust was not removed, and the appearance was not artificially
enhanced.  The only drawback, as far as I've been told, is that these
cleaned specimens will be extremely prone to rusting in the future, unless
kept under controlled conditions of minimal humidity.

These are not the only Sikhote Alins to be cleaned by this process,
apparently it has been used for some 4 or 5 years now.
I would welcome any additions or corrections to this post; as I was not at
Tucson and have not bought any such Sikhote Alins.
--Peter

>I've been looking at the gorgeous Sikhote-Alin specimens......
>The reason I bring this up is that iron meteorites with natural, pristine
>fusion crust in gun-metal and rose tones are rather scarce animals. When they
>start showing up by the wheelbarrow load there is a possibility that they
have
>been processed to remove oxidized crust and tone the metal surface. One
way of
>doing this is with heat and the recent spate of material from Russia may
>indicate that a "factory" has been set up.
_______________________________________
Peter Abrahams   telscope@europa.com
the history of the telescope, the microscope,
    and the prism binocular
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