[meteorite-list] Total Number of Meteorites?

From: Jim Strope <jim_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed Dec 7 10:19:25 2005
Message-ID: <003a01c5fb41$a08fc5b0$6401a8c0_at_DJQVK441>

Great Post Martin:

You have succeeded addressing in one email the high points of the current
meteorite collecting market situation.

As far as all the amature "meteorite finders" out there, I don't even answer
the emails anymore. It is just not worth my time. In the remote chance
that one of these people actually did find a meteorite, if I offered
anything less than a million dollars, they would say I was ripping them off.
This is the downside of meteorites in the news.

Jim Strope

http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=catchafallingstar.com

http://www.catchafallingstar.com

----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Altmann" <altmann_at_meteorite-martin.de>
To: <Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>; <MexicoDoug@aol.com>
Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 9:39 AM
Subject: Re: Re:[meteorite-list] Total Number of Meteorites?


> Hi Doug,
>
> I disagree - greed&gold, diamonds are a girl's best friend - comparions
> between meteorites and materials, which epitomize rareness, desirability
> and
> value, are most perspicuous to laymen, who in general, if they know, what
> a
> meteorite is at all, have no perception, how rare the stuff really is!!
>
> If we regard it in from a more obtuse angle, we have to concede that at
> present we have a totally sick and hilarious situation, haven't we?
> Worldwide there are handful of institutional collections and perhaps 1000
> private collectors and we deal more or less in a coterie with by far the
> rarest material in existance and the impact of the desert material
> together
> with the simultaneous development of ebay as the main selling instrument
> and
> additionally the puny inflow of new collectors, led to the situation, that
> the rarest types of meteorites, even those, where exist on whole world
> only
> such a little amount, that one could comfortably store in a small trunk,
> are
> permanently, day by day, available in web at lower prices, than at which
> any
> lousy semi-precious stone is going.
> It's amazing also with the ordinary desert stuff. If you are not living
> near
> a desert, blue ice field or a site, where once a meteorite was found, you
> can get out of the door and run around for the rest of your life with your
> detector, you'll find gold and silver, but no meteorite. And this stuff
> you
> can buy cheaper now than many other consumer goods! So cheap, that some
> hunters even let their chondrites in desert, as the transportation costs
> wouldn't justify to pick them up.
> So we have the ditsy situation, that those members of the small circle of
> collectors, who should know it better,
> dwell on quarellings, whether a price is exaggerated and whether this or
> that stone could be found somewhere a dollar per gram cheaper or that they
> let pass a R-chondrite, wherefrom exist less material than from Moon,
> 21kg, if I remember right, at 5 or 6$ per gram on ebay, always forgetting
> that they have to deal with by far the most rare and nonreproducable
> matter
> on Earth.
> Man Doug! Remember Bessey's After-Munich-show-dumping, when he was to lazy
> to wrap all in again and offered it at 50$/kg? I propagated this sale to
> about 300 Germans too and they had even an offer for gratis instant
> classification and NWA-numbering, additionally the shipment rates were
> cheap, around 9$ for 20kg.
> Doug, tell me, what could a collector desire more? With that small amounts
> an average collector usually is consumating, he would never manage to get
> the stuff so cheap, if he would travel by his own to Morocco to buy and if
> he would afterwards add up the expences of that trip on the kg-price. Not
> to
> mention the hard slog to get ordinary chondrites classified.
> Do you know how much they ordered?
> 12kg. Twelve kilo.
> A very intriguing experiment, isn't it.
> Obviously they perceived the price as not attractive.
> But why? I would hazard a guess that those reasons led them to their
> opinion:
> - as meteorites are permanently available on ebay, they are not aware,
> that
> meteorites are rare.
> - what does not cost much, has no value
> (- a special German attitude at the moment: If a dealer offers smth. then
> they think, that he would make a good profit with his price, else he
> wouldn't offer it. Thus it's no bargain (and we rather pay 3 times more on
> ebay for the same stuff, as there we set the price, therefore then it's a
> bargain) + I'm a meteorite person, the dealer is meteorite person --> we
> are
> family, if the dealer wants to earn money with me, he's rotten).
> - they think that meteorites will be available in those current quantities
> until the endof all days, as in Morocco for sure are still waiting 100,000
> tons, not knowing, that the rush is over.
> Now your turn, Doug. Don't you think, that then such comparisions are
> helpful?
> Do you agree at least, that it's amusing,
> that people scorn material, which is by far more rare than gold and about
> as
> rare as diamonds at 50/kg.
> Homework for you - 2 days ago my computer got broke (paaaanic), have no
> time - find goods, which cost more than 50bucks per kilo and estimate
> their
> quantities.
>
> Another experiment. Search on ebay for meteori*: I get out 1037 items
> (most
> are meteorites).
> 853 meteorites listed in category: Rocks, Fossils, Minerals.
> Search for amethyst.
> 921 items are listed in category: Rocks, Fossils, Minerals.
> Conclusion for the laymen: Meteorites are as rare as amethyst.
> Look for ammonite 598 hits.
> Conclusion for the laymen: Ammonites are twice as rare than meteorites.
> Da capo....
>
> You see, how insane funny it is?
> The Hupes, Afanasjev, Haberer permanently offer lunaites in US-and German
> ebay.
> (Hey a dream for those from the Apollo-generation).
> A layman looks into ebay, sees that there each week are listed several
> pieces of Moon for sale
> - who could resent, that he thinks then - Moon, if it's available each day
> on ebay, it must be a very common thing. Wherefrom should he know, that
> all
> lunar material still available in public for the 6 billion human beings on
> this planet even won't fill his backpack?
>
> Another phenomen caused by the sheer visibility of the overwhelming choice
> of meteorites on web:
> more and more laymen are convinced, that the brown stone they picked up,
> is
> a meteorite.
> A very funny observation I made: in former times people wrote and ask:
> Could
> my find be a meteorite?
> Now they ask: What is the value of my meteorite, how can I sell it best.
> And I tell you, with more and more it's getting more difficult to convince
> them, that the stone they found in the garden is no lunar mare basalt.
> Here in Germany with our 40 preserved meteorites from the last 1000 years,
> where most fell on the feet of the people, I always have to explain them,
> that to hit the lottery-jackpot is ways more probable, than to find here a
> meteorite.
> But still some of them don't believe me, the sickest are those, who tell
> me
> names, when I'm offering a meteorite, because they would be able to find
> copiously such meteorites on their next airing...
>
> Crazy world. We have to do with the rarest stuff on Earth, where the
> Japanese spend 300 Mega$ to collect a gram, but almost nobody knows, that
> it's so rare. Parallel universe.
>
> And with the experts, I often have to grin, when they, let's invent a more
> eyecatching example and take a space jewel, one of the only 80 pallasites,
> complain that anything else than 0.4$/g would be a rip-off.
> Folks! Imagine meteorite collecting would be as popular as philately, how
> much would you have to pay then!
> (and Captain Blood, sorry, I still refuse to apprehend, that there exist
> smth like a "meteorite market", if you count together all collectors, they
> are much less than you tought in your profession...).
>
> So Doug, let exist 5 times more meteorites than the listed tkws, the
> proportions do not change at all!
>
>>is systemmatically under-represented on virtually all
>> minor impacting meteorites
>
> Would doubt that (or I misunderstood).
> By far the most registered meteorites stem from Antarctica and from
> desert.
> Don't know, how accurate the balances are the Antartic teams are using,
> but
> I guess the weights are accurate.
> Same with Oman finds, with a very few exceptions
> and the NWAs, there are given the weights of the purchased stones. Would
> not
> make sense for the dealers to keep secret, that they have from the
> submitted
> stone more in stock as told - only then, if they are so jerkish and would
> submit from the material in future to get more numbers, but then the
> weights
> would be recorded anyway.
> Don't come with 869, whether it has 2 tons or 4 tons doesn't make the
> cabbage fatty, as we say here.
>
> With stone meteorites your guess certainly doesn't work,
> make some stats - how many >1 ton stones do we know from our 30.000-40.000
> meteorites?
> Impromptu: Jilin, Allende, Pultusk (lost), NWA 869, Tsarev, perhaps
> Kunya-Urgench, perhaps Gao....and...and....?
> So no sincere reason to conjecture, that everywhere a small stone felt,
> that
> there are some tons more in the nearby forest.
>
> Somewhat different with irons and stony irons, but irons make up only 5%
> of
> all falls and if you count that few mass irons available and which still
> are
> hunted today - a dozen perhaps?
> And don't forget, that only those strewnfields are hunted, which promise
> good finds.....
> So add some dozens or 100tons for Campo, Gibeon, Nantan, Sikhote,
> Canyon...and there we are.
> It might change the tonnage of all meteorites considerably, but not the
> ratios to other earthly rare materials.
>
> And so I think to illustrate the rareness of meteorites, we should all
> carry
> on, if asked, with comparing meteorites with other pretious materials.
>
> Buckleboo!
> Martin
>
> PS: I'll ever will prefer meteorites instead of gold&diamonds, they are
> more
> fascinating.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: <MexicoDoug_at_aol.com>
> To: <Meteorite-list_at_meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, December 07, 2005 9:48 AM
> Subject: Re:[meteorite-list] Total Number of Meteorites?
>
>
>> << "If you take the info in the MetBull database on face value,
>> you find that there are ... Irons + stony irons: 521 tons" >>
>>
>> Wow, regarding weight that's about a ton for every collector, give or
>> take...time to rent a U-haul to pick up mine:)
>>
>> Just as there are good comments about the foolishness of the high side
> tons,
>> the "total known weight" is systemmatically under-represented on
>> virtually
> all
>> minor impacting meteorites, (though with Campo del Cielo the
>> underrepresentation is incredibly serious, too) frequently showing a
> factor of 1/5 or 1/10
>> for the less devastating falls. Why anyone would wantto compare
>> meteorite
>> weight to industrial precious metals I still haven't grasped...Is it the
> Gibeon
>> dials on tons of Rolex watches? Allende ... what 2 tons? Actually is
> good bet
>> is 5 tons, more than all meteorite carbonaceous recognized, I think, and
> was a
>> very intensive campaign that arrived at the 2 tons. Those reserves are
>> somewhere...behaving themselves...
>>
>> Maybe it's not always a good idea to assist in such potentially
>> misleading
>> comparisons in the press, where ohh ahhh reigns supreme and unbridled and
> truth
>> and authenticity take a back seat to drama ... and sources are being
> sought
>> out - the way I read this is it will be bound to come back and shoot us
>> in
> the
>> foot so best to tread very carefully and softly...when serving as
> information
>> sources for newspaper articles.
>> Saludos, Doug
>>
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Received on Wed 07 Dec 2005 10:19:32 AM PST