[meteorite-list] Yet another gimmicky expensive meteorite"collectable"

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 16:23:52 +0200
Message-ID: <001b01c9ff0e$8e50e120$177f2a59_at_name86d88d87e2>

No,

it shows only how exotic these laws are.

I'm sure the "Australian Government" doesn't intentionally want to keep the
Australian meteorites in Australia,
I'm rather convinced that quite nobody in the Australian government is aware
of that law at all,
because normal people don't know about meteorites or care about at all.

And you have to keep in mind, how such laws happen.
The most probable scenario is,
that there are a handful of curators or meteorite scientists, who express
their wishes, that the national meteorites should be theirs or that they
should end in their hands or what ever their motivation might be.
No matter how thought-out their ideas are,
and they are sitting in a committee or elsewhere
they give the recommendation to the legislature, that meteorites do have to
be protected.

Legislature means: politicians and civil servants.
Of course these people can't have any idea what a meteorite is, how they are
found, how many do exist, what for a scientific or economical value they
have or don't have and how they were exchanged between finders, museums,
dealers, collectors in past.
At best they have heard of artefacts, dinosaurs, resources - and know, that
these other - in their eyes similar - objects, have to be protected and are
of great importance -
and anyway the proposal to protect meteorites comes from scientists, hence
people, who are supposed to know about what they are talking,
therefore they will always wave that petition through
and will add the word "meteorites" into the relevant already existent laws.

You see it in the Aussie-Natural-Heritage lists,
there they simply added "meteorites",
it would have been logic to add the Australian tektites too - they are much
more valuable than that Henbury, Mundrabilla, Boxhole, Camel Donga,
Millbillillie stuff and much more rare, but you don't find them there.
There you can see how arbitrary that all is.

Or think to Poland - in the last 70 years they had 4 (four) meteorites there
- so I really doubt, that any politician would have seen an urgent need for
action to create a law for meteorites
- but they did, so bizarre or droll this may sound to you.
Most probably because a panjandrum put a bug in a clerk's or politician's
ear. Or because one from the latter felt for the usual rubbish in the
newspapers, that meteorites would have a value of millions of dollars per
stone and are trafficked and dealt by shady persons by thousands of tons on
ominous black markets. So that they get alerted, to protect the thousands of
tons and quadrillions of Zloty of their Polish meteorites
(and to get a faster promotion).

  

But! If once a word is added into a law,
then it will be horribly difficult to remove it from there again.

Look - nobody could have said anything about that experiment to protect
meteorites in Australia.
Now we can judge the results, because enough time has elapsed to see, what
the impact of this laws were.

Well and there everybody can see, that the law had a converse effect than
initially intended: Much, much less meteorites are recovered and almost no
Australian meteorites end up anymore in the Australian institutional
collections and universities.

Wait - I will look in the Bulletin Database.

During the last 10 years - 1999-2009

2007: Bunburra Rockhole, EUC, tkw 324g - a Fall
   
2006: Eldee 001 L6, S3, W1-2 tkw 4.51kg,
         Eldee 002 L6-melt breccia, W2 tkw 101g
         Yaringie H6, tkw 5.75 kg

2003: Prospector Pool Iron, ungrouped tkw 2.77kg

2002: Myrtle Springs H4 tkw 53g (Hello
Don!)

1999: Dunbogan L6 tkw 30g a Fall
         Reid 028 H6, W3 tkw 30g

Makes up 8 (eight) meteorites.
Australia has a total of 649 meteorites.


And these, Ladies and Gentlemen, were the complete officially recorded new
meteorites of the decade of a whole continent, a continent full of deserts.

For you in USA, where no such laws exist, to compare:
(I don't know, whether your deserts are of comparable size and so suitable
for meteorites like the Australian deserts)

But USA had in the same time:
1999-2009 officially recorded in the Bulletins:
   
282 new meteorites

And USA has a total of 1576 meteorites.

GIST OF THAT POSTING:




---> during the last 10 years 18% of all known US-meteorites were found

---> during the last 10 years 1% of all known Aussie-meteorites were found








I use the percentage to exclude factors like population density, properties
of the surface and size of overall surface....

So we see, there has to be done something.

We here on the list are often only lousy laymen, even most of us not
citizens of Australia, we have no influence on Australian legislation.

But scientists pled for the laws, which led to the leakage of new Australian
meteorites, so maybe scientists could pled for an amendment to these laws,
for them finally getting meteorites to work with again.

Therefore we all could ask Alex Bevan, Bill Birch, the McColls, Ross
Pogson...all the Australian meteoricists - not to forget Caroline Smith,
cause just yesterday here an article about London was shown, with the link
to the blog where she went hunting in Australia, one of the few persons, who
were looking for meteorites down-under at all, so she knows the situation
too,
and of course the Meteoritical Society,
that they all perhaps will write at the end a memorandum to improve the sad
situation in Australia and to find better laws.
But also the other scientists should help their colleagues from down-under.


Huh, once I was told by a list member, a German who had emigrated to
Australia, that he would need even an export permit for his German
meteorites from his collection, if he wants to bring them out of Australia.
That's a perfect integration, I'd say, if the belongings of an immigrant get
immediately National Heritage of Australia. But also somewhat weird.

Uh imagine, if someone sends a suspected stone to Bevan to Australia and it
will turn out and classified to be a meteorite. Then he has to apply for an
export permit to get the stone back?

Australia has so fine meteorites and had once such a meteorite tradition,
the superb Wolf-Creek-Crater - well worth to have a meteorite or mineral
fair there. But nobody from other countries will come with meteorites, cause
the paper-warfare would be a mess.

A not so theoretical question:

The meteorite sellers in most cases have a return policy, which allows the
buyers to send the specimens back, if they aren't fully satisfied.
What one has to do, if that happens with an Australian collector?

That all is so strange.

But I think, it could be of importance, that Australia where the situation
became so evident, that the laws disrupted almost fully new finds and
meteorite research
and where the scientists are very disappointed about the situation,
would come to a more reasonable solution,
because it could be a signal for other desert countries and maybe also for
the few not yet so informed proponents and Luddites, who want to have
similar laws there, to avoid such a disaster like had happened in Australia.

Well happy finding,
And greetings to Blinky Bill!
Martin





-----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
Von: Galactic Stone & Ironworks [mailto:meteoritemike at gmail.com]
Gesendet: Dienstag, 7. Juli 2009 13:45
An: Martin Altmann
Cc: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Yet another gimmicky expensive
meteorite"collectable"

Hi Martin and List,

Does anyone else find it ironic that the Aussies will put an
Argentinian meteorite on their Australian coin? The Aussie government
doesn't want it's own meteorites leaving it's borders in the hands of
non-Aussie citizens, so they will take another nation's meteorites and
use those instead. Talk about hypocritical. Talk about playing games
with permits and laws. They should stick to Fosters beer.

Best regards,

MikeG





On 7/6/09, Martin Altmann <altmann at meteorite-martin.de> wrote:
> A medallion with Blinky Bill for you to engrave!
>
> ...aah, you mean the Campo coin?
>
> To complicate to order for me and you,
> because we would have to apply for an export permit first.
>
> (I hope the Royal Australian Mint knows about that problem).
>
> A lawyer could make fun in ordering such a coin and if he doesn't find any
> export permit icluded,
> he could incriminate the Australian Government/Royal Mint for illicit
export
> of National Heritage...
>
> ....so stupid are these Aussie-laws.
>
>
>
>
> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Darren
> Garrison
> Gesendet: Dienstag, 7. Juli 2009 06:29
> An: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Betreff: [meteorite-list] Yet another gimmicky expensive
> meteorite"collectable"
>
> Australian issued meteorite "coin":
>
> (mid list)
>
>
http://www.prospectstampsandcoins.com.au/web/royal_aust_mint/2009_coins/inde
> x.html
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-- 
.........................................................
Michael Gilmer (Louisiana, USA)
Member of the Meteoritical Society.
Member of the Bayou Region Stargazers Network.
Websites - http://www.galactic-stone.com and http://www.glassthrower.com
..........................................................

Received on Tue 07 Jul 2009 10:23:52 AM PDT