[meteorite-list] Canyons, Ebay and what I know about them

From: LabNEMS <staff_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu Apr 22 10:25:42 2004
Message-ID: <5.0.0.25.2.20030521224213.0344f9f0_at_mail.attbi.com>

List / All

Thanks to many for the emails on the pieces being offered on Ebay
and represented as Canyon Diablo.

I was leaving for a scheduled talk by J. Kelly Beatty tonight.
It's an hour and a half drive and just before leaving
I started receiving emails on this. I was unable to respond
thoroughly then but can do so now.

I did examine three small samples that were sent to me by a Mr Dan Ray.
The samples were each less than 20 grams, fragments, saw cut surfaces.
When polished and etched it was easy to identify them as samples
of Canyon Diablo. They were returned to Mr. Ray with a letter stating
that the samples submitted were in fact samples of the Canyon Diablo
meteorite.

The pictures posted on the Ebay site do not include the samples that
we examined. I have never examined any of these. Mr Ray did note
in his letter to me that he had many larger pieces of the same material. His
note indicated that they were oxides or shale if I remember correctly but I
only saw the small samples.

I simply can't say what the pieces are that he is offering without examining
them. I have seen large, flaking, shale oxides of Canyon Diablo. They don't
look meteoritic but a test for Ni usually resolves the issue.

In my email batch tonight I have a note from Mr Ray asking for help and it
seems to be sincere. He notes correctly that we did examine, polish,
and etch three small pieces and not any of the larger ones.
Apparently he has received a lot of questioning emails about his offering.
I will respond to him directly and offer to examine any of the other pieces.
I will also request that he post images of the polished / etched samples
that the letter refers to and make a distinction between the examined samples
and those offered for auction.

I think that Walter B. is right in that a COA on something like this needs
to identify each sample
with mass and size. The letter we sent back with the samples is not all
encompassing for
all of Mr Ray's samples and only refers to the samples received.

 From what I was told and the way it was presented to me I don't know what
to think here. Mr Ray told us by letter that he received a large amount of
this material from someone ( < 15 kg ). Perhaps it was a collection that he
acquired - my speculation - and not all of it was meteoritic? Mr Ray may
feel that it's all the same but without examining the individual pieces
I don't think it's correct to put the whole lot up as authentic.

We all learn from these events. I suppose that we'll now have to include a
disclaimer
in any correspondence stating that it only applies to the examined material
as described.

Again I thank all for the information - especially Gregory and Steve S.
We don't watch the Ebay offerings and probably would never had known about
this.


Loose ends:
Kelly gave a fine talk on Planetary delivery systems tonight and the KSC Moon
rock trial has been moved up to June 2.

Russ Kempton, NEMS
Received on Wed 21 May 2003 11:47:16 PM PDT