[meteorite-list] Hoba question

From: Alexander Seidel <alex.seidel_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon Jun 14 18:05:50 2004
Message-ID: <6174.1087250693_at_www23.gmx.net>

Hi list,

in my private collection resides a small slab of what
is labelled as the Hoba iron, a 25.3 gram partslice with
remarkably fresh crust on one exterior surface. I got
this six yrs ago from a well-reputable collector (and
parttime dealer), one of the high rollers of collectors
here in Europe, who in turn got it from another well-
reputable collector some years earlier, and I have got a
good documentation from both of them for this piece. So
this on the one hand seems nothing but reliable to me.

Now what intrigues me is this: Hoba is a very old fall,
and if you purchase specimens of it nowadays, it will
mainly be iron shale or rusty pieces. My piece looks
different, though it has characteristics, apart from the
comparably fresh looking crust, that resemble a very old
iron on earth. It looks very "dull", and if you turn it
a few degrees up or down against incoming light you can
see that somehow "shady, cloudy" overall structure which
is typical, along with the otherwise relatively sparse
visible characteristics, for this famous iron that is e.g.
well described in Buchwald?s trilogy on iron meteorites.

Now I was told something, and this gets me to the point of
my question: there is a nice big slab (4203 grams) of Hoba
in the Natural History Museum of Washington D.C., which, as
I have been told from a recent visitor there, very much
resembles my own piece, even down to the fresh crust, but
on a much larger size scale, of course. Has any of you guys
or gals on the list ever seen this piece there, or may even
provide a Jpeg of it? Does Hoba display that comparably
"fresh" as I am surprised it obviously can be on old cuts?

I have been there in 1978, in my student days, but that was
(unfortunately!) long before the meteorite bug got me, or
I got it vice versa, so I recall many fine specimens from that
museum, but, of course, not that specific one.

Can anybody help me out here with pics, Jpegs, or links..??

Best wishes,
Alex
Berlin, Germany
Received on Mon 14 Jun 2004 06:04:53 PM PDT