[meteorite-list] Meteorite Histories

From: mark ford <markf_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue Sep 14 09:19:11 2004
Message-ID: <6CE3EEEFE92F4B4085B0E086B2941B3124447F_at_s-southern01.s-southern.com>

Great article!

Yeah, Sure it happens, and it shouldn't! I don't see why institutions
need to be so cagey, pretty well all institutions exchange material with
dealers, it goes with the territory. And it's clear they all have their
'favorite dealers', but I am sure anyone that came to them with the
right material would get let in the door.

Bottom line - Any so called scientist that requests/grinds off labels to
disguise important information should be thoroughly ashamed of
themselves...


Best,
Mark



-----Original Message-----
From: martinh_at_isu.edu [mailto:martinh@isu.edu]
Sent: 14 September 2004 13:39
To: Meteorite List
Subject: Re: RE: [meteorite-list] Meteorite Histories

Hi All,

True story:

Dealer B gets specimens from Dealer A. Notices an area ground off the
surface of all the specimens.

Dealer B gets more specimens from Dealer A. Again notices spot ground
off on all pieces.

Dealer B calls Dealer A and asks for an explanation and is told that the
pieces are coming from a large institutional collection where the
specimens are individually numbered. Instead of chemically dissolving
off the painted specimen numbers, Dealer A simply ground them off with a
bench grinder because it was much faster.

Why would the numbers be removed and the collection history prior to
Dealer A hidden? It was by request of the institutional collection. The
institutional collection wanted to keep the fact that they were
releasing specimens from the other dealers and collector in order to
avoid being bombarded by trade and purchase requests.

I doubt that this story is an isolated incident.

For your reading enjoyment, I have addressed collection history in my
Acc
retion Desk articles at The Meteorite Times. Here are a couple of them:

Leaving a Paper Trail
http://www.meteoritetimes.com/Back_Links/2002/October/Accretion_Desk.htm

Lucky Numbers: Specimen Labels as License Plates from the Past
http://www.meteoritetimes.com/Back_Links/2002/November/Accretion_Desk.ht
m

Cheers,

Martin
Received on Tue 14 Sep 2004 09:15:03 AM PDT