[meteorite-list] Peekskill Meteorite Fetches $1,673 at Auction

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 1 Nov 2007 16:52:46 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200711012352.QAA14883_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20071030/NEWS02/710300351/1018/NEWS02

Peekskill meteorite fetches $1,673 at auction
By ROB RYSER
THE JOURNAL NEWS
October 30, 2007

NEW YORK - It was a bad day at the auction house for two of the most
famous rocks ever to fall from space, but the legend of the Peekskill
meteorite continued this weekend after a buyer pocketed a slice of the
rock that crashed through Michelle Knapp's car in 1992.

The chip off the meteorite, famous not only for its great aim but for
the fact that its fiery streak across the Northeast sky was captured on
16 camcorders, went to an anonymous buyer for a few hundred dollars less
than the pre-auction bid minimum of $2,000 Sunday at Bonhams in Manhattan.

A 23-gram (0.8 ounce) slice, along with videos and three pieces of the
smashed taillight that a collector picked up off Knapp's driveway 15
years ago was sold for $1,673, according to Bonhams.

There was no sale, however for the 1,400-pound Brenham meteorite, found
in a Kansas field in 2005, that was expected to go as high as $700,000.
The Brenham owners withdrew the meteorite after it got a top bid of only
$200,000.

And the so-called crown piece of the Willamette meteorite didn't get the
royal treatment. The auction expected as much as $1.3 million for the
piece, which was cut from the exhibit at the American Museum for Natural
History.

The top bid was hardly astronomical at $300,000.

In all, the auction brought in $750,000 for 50 items.

More than half the items sold above their high estimates, the auction
house said.

The top bid was $122,750 for a rare type of meteorite called an
aesthetic iron - celestial matter that looks more like polished modern
art than a crusty intergalactic traveler. Known as a Sikhote-Alin, the
219-pound silver centerpiece was described as the "sexiest" meteorite on
Earth.
Received on Thu 01 Nov 2007 07:52:46 PM PDT