[meteorite-list] NWA904 Meteorite, Collection in a Slice, MAIN MASS 1, 968g

From: dean bessey <deanbessey_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Nov 24 10:29:13 2004
Message-ID: <20041124152911.13460.qmail_at_web12302.mail.yahoo.com>

Ok, I am sick of this. Want some meteorite trade
secrets and the inside scoup on some scams? If so dont
fall asleap while reading my manuscript here.
Adam keeps saying NWA869 is unofficial which is
correct but its been classified. Alan rubin classified
it twice as L4 and L5, matteo got an 3.8-6 and another
french dealer got 3.8. Farmer has it classified.
Obviously Paired NWA904 has been classified. There is
no meteorite that is like NWA869. Its a very
brecciated meteorite. Look at this one for example.
http://www.meteoriteshop.com/ebay/nwa869two.jpg
There is another university actually interested in it
and is doing a big research project on many kilos. It
is easy to recogonize NWA869 (Or whatever you want to
call it - NWA869 has taken on the most commonly
accepted name I guess because I have been so vocal
with promoting hundreds of kilos of it). For the
record it will not appear in the bulletin this year
(So yes, will remain unofficial for another year so
the stupid unofficial arguement can continue to be
made) because it is such a varied meteorite that has
created so much discussion that Michael Zolonsky asked
to get a sample to look at himself. I plan on sending
him a good brecciated sample showing 3 different
meteorites but I havent been able to contact him for a
couple weeks. Scientiest sare very busy nowadays with
institutions so underfunded.
One can take the fact that scientists dont have time
to go through the expensive motions to pair chondrites
and then say "It is wrong to make pairing judgements"
knowing full well that it wont get done but that dont
disprove the fact that they are the same meteorite.
NWA869 will most likely be the biggest strewnfield
from the desert and one of the largest chondrite
strewnfields in the world. It great that the biggest
one had to be such a nice and interesting and varied
meteorite. You can wish them different because that
would make them worth more but fact is if you paid $1
a gram for one of the paired stones that several
dealers are selling as low TKW you have been ripped
off - and since every dealer can recogonize NWA869 the
dealer knew that he ripped you off. Plain and simple.
Wishing wont make it something else anymore than
wishing wont make BCCs fake mnoon rock real. And using
the lame arguement that no scientists has
scientifically paired every single one of 75,000
stones just dont wash. We all know they are the same.

I will go further because I am sick of this. What is
happening with NWA869 and NWA1109 is nothing short of
fraud. And there are 3 or 4 dealers involved. NWA869
is a great meteorite and one can easily take one of
the more brecciated ones (With the black inclusions or
melt which makes it more interesting) and call it
something else. At least one dealer is selling it as
his own find. Take a particularly nice one and get it
classified and sell it for $1 a gram and argue like
the fake moon rock people that they are real. Threaten
lawsuits if necessary to scare people.
NWA1109 is more interesting. We were all once buying
it for upwards of $20 a gram in morocco once and
everybody thought it was an howardite. (Although I
have a kilo piece now that I would part with foor
$7500) The diogenite levels has to be 10% to make it a
howardite. Every dealer knows this so whats happening
with 3 or 4 dealers (Including some in europe so I am
not singling one dealer out here - or even two
dealers) is to find a piece with more than 10%
diogenite material and get that classified and then
the whole stone is a howardite worth $75 a gram
instead of $15. You only need a half square inch of
material with 10% diopgenite material to get the
entire stone officially in the met bulletin as a
howardite. NWA1109 is a great meteorite and a whole
host of dealers are taking obviously paired stones and
finding a piece with 10% diogenite material and then
getting the howardite classification. Paired NWA1644
(Classified by MIT as a polymict eucrite because the
sample that I gave them only had 6% diogenite
material) had a customer send his piece to a
university in germany (He wanted official verification
that I was selling a real meteorite as he was very
sceptical that I was selling a meteorite) and came
back howardite because that sample that he gav eto the
university had the 10% requirement. So NWA1644 has
been properly classified as both but it appears in teh
bulletin as a eucrite.
There are lots of inclusions and weird things in
NWA1109 and you could also probably get really exotic
classifications if one tried to get really fancy with
inclusions - but I dont see large numbers of dealers
doing that and the scam is generally to get howardite
classifications. NWA1109 could well be an howardite.
It is borderline but officially a eucrite.
Remember something important here. The nomads work in
groups and
when the try and sell to people like me, farmer and
everybody else they basically usually pull a scam.
They split up the fall and offer me 50 grams, farmer
50 grams, the hupes 50 grams and the european dealers
50 grams each saying that this is all there is. Once
you buy then 50 more grams appear. This is one of the
things people buying in morocco has to put up with. It
happens to everybody. We just all live with it. The
scam may have worked in the beginning but it has
backfired on the moroccans because us buyers now
assume that there is 25 kilos of everything and wont
pay as much as we would if there really was only 400
grams of a stone. We assume that there is 20 kilos of
everything. There is a TKW honestly discount put on
buying this stuff in morocco nowadays.
The nomads know that if there is 3000 kilos (I was
first told that the 79 kilos of NWA869 that I bought
was the entire fall) that it wont be worth much. It
would be very unusual that one dealer would have very
rare finds and no other dealer have any of it. Rare
types of meteorites dont fall in 90 gram strewnfields.
One or two might. There are several dealers including
a couple european dealers who regularly go to the main
shows that does this and nobody else has paired NWAs
to theirs.
Think about that when you buy a rare type of
meteorite.
And if you bought something as an howardite or
something else that looks identical to NWA1109 or some
really nice L chondrite looking a lot like NWA869 with
black melt spots think for a second why such a thing
exists and wonder if the dealer has taken a few
lessons from the moroccan TKW scam school. Being lied
to with knowlingly misrepresented material might be
criminal but being a stupid consumer means that nobody
should feel sorry for you when you get ripped off.
Sincerely
Your now really froze in canadian
DEAN




                
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Received on Wed 24 Nov 2004 10:29:10 AM PST