[meteorite-list] View points

From: Ingo Herkstroeter <metopaster_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 17 Mar 2007 23:49:18 +0100
Message-ID: <000501c768e6$7f2caeb0$0873a8c0_at_Geobase>

Hi Martin, List!

I wouldn't follow all your words below, Martin, and I never have said
such things!

What ever, you made a good point: "Back to meteorites!"

Yeep, exactly what I think! Let's do it now!

Ingo

-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Martin Altmann [mailto:altmann at meteorite-martin.de]
Gesendet: Samstag, 17. M?rz 2007 17:06
An: 'Ingo Herkstroeter'; meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: AW: [meteorite-list] View points

Hi Ingo,

I couldn't know, that the mail on the list was privately.
That discussion is vexatious. Let's make it short.
Those whammies to dealers on the list are routine.

- Dealers don't contribute to the scientific discourses on the list,
they abuse the list only for propagating their material.

I say: Even if so - what else than about just that material they
organize
and advertise, we are discussing here? The stones alone are contribution
enough.

- Dealers are rotten, immoral and unethical persons - they are driven by
greed, they try to make profit.

I say: Meteorites were traded and dealt since 200 years.
Meteorite dealer is a bread & butter job (but unfortunately no 9:00 a.m.
to
5 p.m.). To ask higher ethical standards than from your baker or butcher
is
absurd. AsCause everything in meteoritics works only via reputation and
authenticity, they do already have higher standards.
That you earn money with your profession, should be a normal thing,
shouldn't it?
I can't find any meteorite dealer, who had bought with the revenues of
meteorite selling during the price crises of the recent 5 years his
palace,
his yacht, his fancy fleet of cars or whatever you'll take as epitomes
for
large wealth. Nor do I see one of them employing a secretary, a
preparator,
a packer, a webmaster.
Meteorite dealer is a harder profession than others.
Nothing against Farmer, the Hupes, Afanasjev et al. but every mid-sized
fossils or mineral dealer mildly smiles, if he get to know the annual
turnover and the work, risks and exertions they have to bear for that.
So be sure, without enthusiasm for the stones, no dealer could do this
job
to himself.

- Meteorite dealer are dicing meteorites, destroying significant
specimens,
for a higher profit to satisfy their greed.

I say. We have a collectorship in meteoritics on Earth of 1000 people at
best. The smallest field of collection. It is ways more easier to sell a
Ferrari, a race-horse, fine art, islands in the sun than meteorites,
because
for meteorites exists no demand, the supply was to large for this small
demand during the last years, so that the prices went underground. See
many
of the old-time-sellers have disappeared.
(now it starts to get better, see the Martians..).
Most of these collectors do have a very limited budget. They simply
can't
afford large pieces. The number of collectors being able to assemble
good-sized specimens is very limited. A part of them is willing to pay
for
larger specimen only prices, which aren't economically justifiable for a
dealer.
Museums aren't buying anymore or to that extend as they did the 200
years
before.
So would you recommend, that the dealers should quit?
They are selling smaller pieces only, because they have to do so and
because
there is a demand for. Ask them. If they could, they would be glad and
happy, if they could sell only big and entire specimens. It would save
endless work, it would set funds free at a faster pace for new
acquisitions
and adventures. And it is rubbish to claim, that the dealers would
atomize
all of their stuff. Look around, there is no exotic stone, where you
couldn't purchase a big stone, a main mass, complete fullslices.
I guess, you should switch a little bit your
ant's-market-ebay-perspective,
ebay isn't the main market for meteorites.

- Meteorite Dealers are criminals. They steal their stones, they rip off
the
former owners, they act illegally, they obscure, they inflict damage to
science and so on ad libitum.

Where are we and who are the dealers, that they should swallow such
baseless
accusations?
Why is it apparently allowed to voice such imputations on the list
months
for months,
but it should be not allowed to counter them?

Thanks God, there are only a few notorious ones, (whose bigotry is
sometimes
astonishing), who spread their strange imaginations again and again
here,
and the vast majority appreciates, demonstrating the adequate respect to
the
work of the hunters and dealers.

But, and here I see the main problem, there are many beginners on the
list
and there is the possibility that, because those strange ones are
allowed to
repat and repeat and repeat their imputations,
that they could believe that crap, especially if noone of the accused
contradicts.

(And if someone starts to run amok, verbally threatening a list members
health and life, Ingo, there we don't have to discuss - if that person
won't
be kicked off from the list, the victim has the right to answer).

Soooo, don't you think that kind of discussion isn't annoying for me
neither?
It is, and I guess that was ist for the rest of the year, what I have to
say
about such stuff.

Back to meteorites!
Martin




-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Ingo
Herkstroeter
Gesendet: Samstag, 17. M?rz 2007 00:06
An: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: [meteorite-list] View points

Hi Martin, Mike and List!

First of all the e-mail to Armando was a private one and shouldn't go to
the list! I don't know why Armando posted it (mistake, I think) and it's
also not very important for me! I stand to that, I have written in the
mail. But I have seen Martin, that you never have understand, what my
point was and still is really.

The goal of this list is (in my understanding) to let knowledge about
meteorites and related things growth. It's not the place for personal
fights or blaming. I hate, for example, the game between Mike and Matteo
and also the lot of mails, which follow them, where others say, that
they hate it. Same was the game with Steve a while ago. For me such
fights in a public forum are childish, nothing more. So if I had to say
something to this subject: I posted it directly to these persons, but
not to the list. This sort of post, was it, that I send to Armando to
say him, that I think in a way like he, but that a personal attack is
not the way.

Martin, you have attacked my view of meteorites and meteorite business
directly, but you show very clearly for me, that you have absolutely
missed my point:
I don't have problems with the cutting of a meteorite generally. How one
should make research without cutting? How to discover strange inclusions
or uncommon minerals in them, without cutting? Simply not possible!
I also don't have problems with the fact, that you and others (and yes,
me too) make money with them, while one cut them.

I have two view points on meteorites you have mixed up:

1. Personally collection view point:

I like individuals and full slices more than fragments and part slices.
I like slices with crust more than these without and I like fresh
material more than weathered. Bigger is also better!
You maybe have realized that viewpoint as you offered me an individual
for my resell last year, which I didn't wanted, cause I had to cut it
there for.
I don't like meteorite spheres, carvings and so on.

2. Generally (or lets say more scientific) viewpoint

Meteorites are rocks, so they not only have a typical mineral
composition, for each class, they have a typical structure, also!! If
you have two rocks with the same mineral composition, but different
structures, you have two different rocks.
My problems with some dealers start exactly on that point: If they begin
to cut meteorites under that size, and that only for a little bit more
money. As a small example lets take a lunar meteorite (lunar material is
still the material, which becomes cut in very small slices, micros or
what ever, caused by a very high price per gram and a big publicity, so
one can make good money):
Let's take DAG 400 as a classic lunar sample: DAG 400 is classified as
anorthositic breccia, containing granulitic fragments, intergranularly
recrystallized anorthosites and mineral fragments. How can a micro slice
represent all these components? It can't! Sometimes it can be hard to
cut a slice under 1 gram, which even shows completely matrix surrounded
anorthositic clasts. So in smaller slices (mm size or micros) all the
expressiveness (in a petrologic way) is lost. This is not the interest
of science and it should surely not be the interest of a collector also.
The second thing here is the cut lose, for smaller slices much more
higher, so more of the material is lost for ever
In this way I don't like (most of) the Chladni Cases (especially not the
"S" sized ones)!
We all know that it can happen, that a slice breaks and you get micros,
but a special production of these is a different thing.

Martin, you see it's not the "IF" you make money with meteorites, is
more the "HOW" you make it.

That's my opinion, nothing more and nothing less! Not better than yours,
but surely not lesser worth than yours also!

By the way, Martin! I don't know, what you mean with this:
"And I saw you in past of course selling small slices and cuts, also
from
your Moroccan exotic stones too, which you cut down."

The only material from meteorites, which I have classified and sold by
Ebay were OCs not very exotic! ;) The exotic stuff and also all main
masses (OC or not) will remain in my collection!

Hope we will have a good discussion one day, while sitting somewhere
with a beer or wine!!!

Best Wishes

Ingo

 

 



-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von
Martin Altmann
Gesendet: Freitag, 16. M?rz 2007 13:30
An: 'Armando Afonso'; meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Fw: all List members & MikereThreatsfromMr
Gregory

Hi Armando,

but with your view we would have to throw Founder Chladni, Schreibers
(father of modern meteoritics), Brezina, Daubree, Maskelyne,
Reichenbach,
Ward, Fletcher, Cohen, Nininger et al. out of the pantheon of
meteoritics,
cause they were all such immoral looters or bought from such unethical
predators, you're complaining about.
Not a single one of the top 20 institutional collections of the world,
wasn't built up with meteorites, acquired in that way, which you condemn
to
be highly unethical!

(Huh, I almost was tempted to ride the horse, what for immense treasures
are
assembled in the large museums of Portugal due to its colonial history).

And Armando, how do you think that today science or art museums,
universities, institutions are getting their stuff? They are simply
buying
it! Aside from a few donations (and be sure, that several meteorite
dealers
do donate too).

Why should it be different with meteorites? The past showed, that those
institutions weren't comparably successful in hunting meteorites as
private
expeditions were or that if they were successful the monetary expenses
were
much higher, than if they would have simply bought the stones either
from
the hunters, which are working on their own financial risk and expenses
or
in Morocco.
The find quotas, the delivery of free material mandatory, if one wants
to
get a stone recognised, the expenses Antarctica or Space Flight versus
buying prices, I don't have to itinerate here, as we had it a hundred
times
on the list here.

And take the initial reason, why you are so furious about commercial
dealers, which obviously was the circumstance, that Farmer bought
Ourique.
He's sitting on another continent, the seller was a private person, so
why
the heck couldn't have bought any Portuguese institution the stone from
the
finder? Why Farmer was able to recover months after the fall still
fragments, which were scattered in wind&weather since Xmas around the
pit in
the dirt road??
Do you think, it would be of concern to the owner of the stones, to whom
he
sells his stone? You could have travelled also there to "rescue" the
stones
for science.

What do you think would be the best solution? National laws, which
declare
all meteorites being property of the respective state?
Would that be fair to those laypeople, who discover the stones of new
falls,
would that be ethical against the land owners on whose properties old
and
new finds were made?
Who would then go on the hunt? Nobody anymore and you simply could
forget
continuing the situation that hundreds and thousands of new and
sometimes
scientifically important meteorites would be retrieved.
And why the heck, do you think, that j u s t the meteorite dealers and
hunters should be so moral, to enforce laws to prohibit their work?
Is it their job?

And if you personally feel such ethical obligations, what keeps you away
>>from raising funds to acquire meteorites to donate them to
institutions, to
"rescue" them for science. There are big collectors, who buy from time
to
time nice specimens to donate them to museums ect.
So get started, Armando!

And Ingo please:

> I think like you in a way! Many dealers, who are part of this list, do
> look at meteorites only in a profit oriented way. They are not really
> interested in the material and its scientific importance. The list is
> only a big publicity place for them, nothing more.

Stop it, we can't hear it anymore!!!
My experience with those apostles blaming the dealers to destroy their
stones driven by greed is, that whenever you offer to exactly those
accusants an entire stone or a substantial specimen,
they will answer: Who, me? Why me? Oh no no, I'm much to poor...the
others
should... and so on. - or, if they have the budget to buy large pieces,
they
ward off such more moral offers in suggesting prices below the costs of
the
dealers and far below the costs, they would have to pay by themselves,
if
they would have organized the material (but in most cases they wouldn't
have
been able to do so at all).

Do you think the dealers wouldn't like to spare time and work in selling
their treasures as complete stones? It would by so comfortable for them!
And honestly, you personally are no exception to that rule.
(And I saw you in past of course selling small slices and cuts, also
from
your Moroccan exotic stones too, which you cut down).

And not to forget Ingo & Armando, if there wouldn't exist those persons,
who
you are trying to criminalize,
NOT a single piece of meteorite would be in your collections.

Buckleboo.
Martin

PS: Armando, how are the results with the experiment with your butcher,
baker...?
Received on Sat 17 Mar 2007 06:49:18 PM PDT