[meteorite-list] Ad - Weekly Rare Material

From: Adam Hupe <adamhupe_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:22:40 2004
Message-ID: <02ca01c33606$04ec3b00$b4dbe60c_at_attbi.com>

Dear List Members,

Thank you for a fun auction tonight. A lot of buyers picked up some pretty
nice planetary specimens at bargain basement prices. I wish we could have
these kind of auctions more often but they are too costly for us.

As most of you already know this weeks rare material is NWA 1877
(provisional), a so-called "Olivine Diogenite". It is the most olivine-rich
yet found. NWA 1459 still holds the record for being the most Iron and
Chromite-rich. I believe NWA 1459 is also the freshest even though there is
some staining to the olivine crystals. NWA 1877 has some of the biggest
crystals I have seen meaning preparation was a very serious undertaking.
The problem with these giant crystals is that they have cleavage planes
meaning they are susceptible to breakage or worse yet plucking during
preparation. We consulted a scientists and he told us to use an optically
correct penetrant which worked very well keeping this material together
during prep. Then all these pieces were diamond lapped to 3500. The end
product is nice looking material that resists breakage and deterioration.

We are starting these out at less than a tenth of what NWA 1459 trades for.
We are doing this for the next week only. The reason for the much lower
price is that we have more weight to work with, we were able to acquire it a
much lower price and we do not need to pay bonuses to our partners on this
specimen. Even though this is the rarest class in private hands we felt a
lower introduction price would get this material into more collections thus
generating more interest. It seems to have worked as three of the eighteen
specimens have already sold before I could finish this announcement.

Here is a link to our eBay auctions:

http://members.ebay.com/aboutme/meteoritelab/

Wishing everybody the best,

Adam Hupe
IMCA 2185
Received on Wed 18 Jun 2003 09:56:37 PM PDT