[meteorite-list] Morocco Trip and Meeting

From: Greg Hupe <gmhupe_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri Jan 14 11:34:21 2005
Message-ID: <1c9e01c4fa56$e3cab2a0$81adcf44_at_Gregor>

Dear list members,

As promised, here is a quick report from our last Morocco trip and a couple
photos.

This last trip was a very trying one that included many mishaps such as lost
luggage to and from Morocco, luckily everything eventually arrived here (at
4:30 in the morning after only two hours of sleep in nearly three days!).
There were some other accidents that I will leave out of respect to our
Moroccan partner's requests, but lets just say that he will be a little more
careful next time.

Unlike the last trip, there were no police roundups due to competitive
dealer games. Instead, we managed to gather a good many of the Moroccan
dealers in one spot, Aziz Habibi's hotel of all places! This turned into a
mini "Moroccan Meteorite Summit", as I like to call it. During this
gathering we managed to discuss actions that may be taken to finalize some
older "problems". We also talked about the Moroccan meteorite market in its
current and future state.

As all of you can see there has been a flood of rare material lately but a
slow down overall. In my opinion, the Moroccan material is slowing fairly
quickly and will not last much more than a few years at best. There is a
noticeable slowdown from only a year ago. A lot of the rare material that
was held back is now materializing and making it to all of our collections.
This tells me that the slowdown has ramped up speed and it is only a matter
of time until a slow drizzle will come out. Other indicators are the
distances some of these dealers are traveling to acquire new material. In
short, far into neighboring countries. I feel the meeting was a step in the
right direction and hopefully we can all start working together in a more
positive manner.

Photo of several attending dealers (several chose NOT to be photographed and
are not in picture)
http://www.lunarrock.com/moroccomeeting/summit1.jpg
Greg back, right. Habibi back, left with red shirt collar

Photo of Habibi (left) talking to an unexpecting Adam on his cell phone
http://www.lunarrock.com/moroccomeeting/summit2.jpg

After cutting a couple of select stones I brought back, I can say that we
will be offering some very nice classified material in the near future.

Best regards,

Greg and Adam Hupe
The Hupe Collection
Team LunarRock
naturesvault (eBay)
meteoritelab
gmhupe_at_tampabay.rr.com
IMCA 2185
Received on Fri 14 Jan 2005 11:34:16 AM PST