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$1,000 MONAHANS? . . . YES PLEASE

This discussion about the "value" of Monahans is becoming very bizarre
indeed. I suppose that if Monahans had been a find, not a witnessed close
call fall, with all the attendant media coverage and legal battle (plus the
feverish interest generated on this very list) then it might have been
possible to buy fragments for $1/g. (but I doubt it).

We probably all agree that falls are generally much more prized than finds.
Even "ordinary" meteorites become highly desirable if they've been the
cause of some sort of near-miss with humans or animals. Look at the prices
on Peekskill and Claxton for example (Just the Peeksill wrecked car is
worth more than $1,000 for heaven's sake!). And, of course, media attention
(especially controversy) will only add more value to this fall. People
(okay, TV addicts) who aren't quite as obsessive about meteorites as we
are, may see news footage about the Monahans case and decide that they want
to own a little piece of this fall as a curiosity. That will drive the
price up even more.

This $1,000 "valuation" on Monahans is a fantasy, and at that price I think
almost anyone on this list would snap it up in a New York second (as we say
out here), and re-sell it for at least twenty times that much.

It will be most interesting to see how much a few grams of Monahans will
fetch at some future Phillips auction (maybe together with a piece of the
pavement crater?). A decent-sized piece could probably finance another one
of those off-the-shelf NASA comet missions. I'm sure they only cost about
$1,000 each.

Geoff Notkin