[meteorite-list] Fw: Comments; Meteorite Collecting, NWA Africa, Pricing........

From: dean bessey <deanbessey_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 09:42:02 2004
Message-ID: <LAW2-F74nJ711HZv7FD00003773_at_hotmail.com>

First off I have to agree with michael and wilson. Why a meteorite is worth
5 times as much because of some accident 2 billion years ago that delayed a
meteorites hitting the earths atmosphere by 9 hours so that it fell in
alaska rather than somewhere in the sahara is behond my comprehension.
Also, I guess that I have to meet michaels $200 a kilo price on my NWA
material since we are selling the same material. Anybody who bought any at
my 25 cent a gram price will get enough extra to bring the cost down to 20
cents. I dont feel a need to meet the labbennes 15 cent price as you are
getting the rejects of already classified material. If the labbennes find a
strewnfield with 50 meteorites they give each one a name and then get one at
random classified. You only need one meteorite in a strewnfield classified
to find out what all of the other meteorites in the strewnfield are like.
They then mix the comparatively uninteresting stuff with comparatively
uninteresting stuff from other strewnfields and take out the nice stones
with nice crust or shape so that there is no way that the buyers can guess
at pairings. The leftovers are visual rejects and there is no chanch of
finding something that would make a scientist drool.
Compare that with the NWA stuff where you may or may not be getting visual
rejects (And at 20 cents a gram you will get a lot of that - at least before
cutting) but nomads have no idea of what is a good classification and you
dont either and unless you cut them you dont have much of an idea either.
You have almost (Maybe a little less) as good a chanch of finding good
material in uncut NWA material as you do if you find the material yourself
and give the coordinates where it was found (Coordinates would increase the
value of your stuff for some reason). So for that reason I would consider
saharas to be worth less than NWAs and a 5 cent discount sounds about right.
I am not saying that they are not collectable. Hell, 15 cents a gram for
saharas. Many will look stunning when you cut them open and see the metal
flakes. You are getting one killer deal. If meteorite collecting ever
catches on with the mainstream public the desert meteorites will very
quickly dry up and prices will rise dramatically. 2001 will be known as the
good old days where you could get meteorites for under a quarter a gram.
Even falls have fallen in price because of the desert stuff competing with
them for the collector dollar. Imagine two years ago being able to buy a
meteorite for this price. People would be lining up for stuff. Actually
people are lining up for the stuff now. I had a pretty busy day yesterday
filling orders and most of my big ones are all gone. I just made
arrangements to get another 200 kilos which I should have late february. The
sahara is very meteorite rich but the quantity is drying up fast and wont
last forever. Few meteorites are found in morocco now as its getting all
hunted out and the nomads in eastern morocco are reporting most of their
finds to be in algeria.
Dont delay buying this stuff. Prices are about as low as they can go and
still allow anybody to make it worthwhile bothering to go get them. My
opinion is that the NWAs are a much better value than falls that cost 5
times or more as much for no reason other than (To borrow a comment from an
earlier email) "you know what side of the road they fell on".
On another note maybe somebody should lobby the new US president to hire 4
or 5 people to classify meteorites. Some good arguements have been made that
this would probably be a better return on investment than finding 74 kilos
of antarcticas at a cost of 2 million. I am sure that the labbennes could
get the US government 5 times that amount and at a tiny fraction of the
cost.
My two (Or maybe 5 or 6) cents worth
DEAN
>







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Received on Sun 21 Jan 2001 01:08:57 AM PST