[meteorite-list] 1,400-pound Pallasite Meteorite Goes On Auction

From: Ron Baalke <baalke_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Mon, 24 Sep 2007 14:50:47 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <200709242150.OAA13697_at_zagami.jpl.nasa.gov>

http://www.nwanews.com/adg/News/202352/

Auction to settle question of worth
BY MARK MINTON
Arkansas Democrat Gazette
September 24, 2007

After Steve Arnold finally found the big one, buried seven feet deep in
a Kansas wheat field, he hoisted his treasure into the bed of his pickup
and hauled it back to the Ozarks.

Two years later, Arnold's discovery, a rare meteorite that is the
biggest of its kind ever unearthed, will go to the high bidder at an
auction scheduled for next month in New York. Also on the block: Choice
chunks of the moon and Mars, a smattering of meteorites decommissioned
from the Smithsonian Institution and London's Natural History Museum,
and a rock billed as "the sexiest meteorite on earth."

There is even a crumpled mailbox felled by a meteorite that hurtled down
one night in 1984, crash-landing outside a mobile home in Georgia.

Bonhams & Butterfields, the auction house staging what it calls the
first sale devoted to "fine meteorites," says the Oct. 28 event is
historic because it includes a piece of the famous "Willamette
meteorite" exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History in New
York. But Arnold's cone-tipped space rock - "the most important American
meteorite discovery of the past 50 years" - is the headliner in the
Bonhams announcement.

The 1,430-pound chunk of the asteroid belt between Jupiter and Mars
already has brought fame to Arnold, a 41-year-old professional meteorite
hunter who lives near Kingston in Madison County. His Oct. 16, 2005,
discovery landed him an appearance on NBC's Today show, among other
media notices.

But only the auction will answer the question that has consumed him
since he dug up the stone: What's it worth?

No one can say with precision. Prize meteorites reportedly have sold to
collectors for six-figure sums. A rock this big, however, may be beyond
the reach of all but a couple of collectors, said Darryl Pitt, curator
of New York's noted Macovich collection, which has about a dozen of its
own pieces in the auction.

The priciest meteorite ever sold at public auction went for $ 135,000.
"And that was just a slice," Pitt said.

"Your homeboy there, he rang the bell on this. It's truly off the charts.'

Arnold discovered his meteorite, which is the size of an engine block,
on farmland near Brenham, Kan.

About 100 miles west of Wichita, the location is wellknown to meteorite
hunters. A big one crashed there thousands of years ago, scattering 3
tons of fragments, according to the American Museum of Natural History.

The Brenham site was presumed to have been tapped out long ago.

But Arnold, who had been hunting for 13 years without a big score,
decided to gamble on new technology and an informed hunch.

He re-plotted the presumed path of the Brenham meteorite after
concluding that an impression believed to be an impact crater was
actually a "buffalo wallow," a low spot where the beasts would roll
around in mud and water. At least, that's how the Macovich collection
put it in a promotional release.

Arnold was coy.

Asked just what persuaded him there was more to be had from the site, he
drummed his fingers nervously on a tabletop. Gaps stretched between his
words.

Arnold, who wears a "Meteorite Recovery Team" cap depicting a falling
star, was equally circumspect about his current meteorite hunt.

"Top secret," was all he said.

Arnold and Phil Mani, a San Antonio lawyer and meteorite collector who
bankrolled the Kansas search, bought the meteorite rights to several
sections of farmland to protect any finds.

Then Arnold started sweeping the field.

Dragging a frame-mounted metal detector behind a fourwheeler, he
listened through headphones for the telltale screech.

His custom detector is sensitive to depths of 15 feet - sometimes too
sensitive. Working his way through the wheat, he had to stop every 100
feet or so to dig.

He unearthed a coyote trap, horse shoes, pliers and a ring for a bull's
nose before he found his stone.

On the heels of his discovery, scientists from the Houston Museum of
Natural Science descended on the site. Using a ground-penetrating radar
system developed to search for water on Mars, the team found a 154-pounder.

The museum plans to feature it in its planned "Great Balls of Fire !"
exhibit, said Carolyn Sumners, vice president for astronomy and physics.

Arnold has had his meteorite on a tour of museums and exhibitions
between Fort Worth and Kansas City during the two years since his
discovery. Dragging it in a U-Haul behind his bright yellow Hummer, he's
also made two trips to Tucson's annual gem and mineral show, a must-go
for serious collectors and dealers.

Arnold also has returned to Kansas. But the tornado that swept down the
prairie last spring, killing 10 people and leveling Greensburg, damaged
the house that he bought for his extended hunts. Then the city knocked
it down as part of the cleanup.

"My house survived the F-5 tornado," Arnold said, "but it didn't survive
the Caterpillar D 5 bulldozer." As a full-time meteorite hunter, dealer
and broker, he has traveled as far as the deserts of Oman. In the last
year, he said, he prospected five new destinations. All were dry holes.
"I'm at a crossroads," Arnold said. "A lot depends on what happens at
the auction. Hopefully, it will fund me to do some other exotic stuff."
Who will put up cash for a 1,400-pound meteorite? "I think many
people, for the right price, would buy that rock," Sumners said.

Derek Sears, director of the University of Arkansas Space Center, said
museums have plenty of Brenham pieces already. But he agreed that
Arnold's meteorite is "a very rare and very interesting type." Fewer
than 1 percent of meteorites are pallasites - chunks of iron-nickel
alloy containing olivine, the mineral that produces the semiprecious gem
peridot.

Pallasites have been selling between $ 5 and $ 20 a gram for small
samples, said Max McCoy, an author who teaches journalism at Emporia
(Kan.) State University and has followed Arnold's discovery for a book
he's writing about the Brenham meteorite. It's impossible to extrapolate
per-gram prices to a piece that weighs more than half a ton.

"But what is indisputable," said McCoy, who plans to use the auction as
the last chapter of the book, "is that these pallasites are worth quite
a bit of money."

Although Arnold has the largest stake in the meteorite, he is not the
only one awaiting the auction with high hopes.

Mani has a share, as does Allen Binford, the 78-year-old farmer who sold
the rights to hunt for meteorites on his farm.

Binford has thought he was close to a big payday before. At one of the
Tucson shows, he recalled, "We had a meteorite guy there who looked at
it, and he said, 'That's worth $22 million.' We told him we'd take a
check anytime," he said, chuckling.

Bonhams & Butterfields estimates the value at $ 630, 000-$ 700, 000,
according to a release posted on the Macovich collection's Web site. A
spokesman for Bonhams & Butterfields did not return calls for comment.

Early on, Arnold embraced $ 1 million as a satisfying price. But he
admits his shopping of the rock hasn't produced tangible results.

"Suffice it to say, nobody's had an offer we were willing to take," he
said.

But he's confident it will find a buyer next month. Arnold has no idea
who it might be. He's just hoping something big comes out of the blue.
Received on Mon 24 Sep 2007 05:50:47 PM PDT