[meteorite-list] What makes a hammer a hammer?

From: Dave Gheesling <dave_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 3 Jan 2009 22:24:40 -0500
Message-ID: <536A65E200884C98BBFD798B7805D682_at_meteorroom>

Good points, Darren...and the list of collecting criteria could go on and on
ad infinitum. Yet it would also be interesting to measure this hammer issue
not in units but in dollars (or Euros or whatever currency). Like you, I
have no solid statistics here (this arena really needs them badly, by the
way), but, when looking at market price and/or relative price/gram (i.e.
"value"), the representative percentage of both collectors in the community
and specimens in collections would obviously be substantially higher than on
a units basis. Whatever the statistics, it is true that a significant
premium is paid by collectors for "hammers," and we could probably all (at
least most) agree it would be a good thing to have a better definition of
that term...at least a consistent one.

-----Original Message-----
From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
[mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Darren
Garrison
Sent: Saturday, January 03, 2009 10:18 PM
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] What makes a hammer a hammer?

On Sat, 3 Jan 2009 21:50:18 -0500, you wrote:

>I thought you meant to say the community of hammer collectors within
>the meteorite collecting community was small -- relative to the
>international meteorite collecting community itself.

I would say that it probably is, when defined as a "main concern" for the
collectors-- you have people who collect by type, people who collect by
location, people who collect only witnessed falls, and people who collect
based on wherther or not it hit some human artifact. At most, what
percentage of meteorite collectors have "hammers" being a main collecting
criteria? 10%? I'd bet that it doesn't approach 25%. It is, then, a small
percentage of what is already a tiny (compaired to world population and
compaired to other areas of
collecting) group of people.

My point being-- a term in use by such a small number of people and known by
such a small number of people woukd, I think, be more vaguely defined than
something-- say-- that would reach The OED or Encyclopedia Britannica
(leaving the Urban Dictionary and Wikipedia out of the equation for the
moment).
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Received on Sat 03 Jan 2009 10:24:40 PM PST