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

From: Marcin Cimala <marcin_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 17:33:09 +0200
Message-ID: <00de01c9ff18$3bec2700$0d00000a_at_polandmezrd5i9>

"Gold Chondrule Avard"
for Mr Altmann for longest emails ever posted to the list :D

Just my two grosz, totaly off-topic.
:) :D

-----[ MARCIN CIMALA ]-----[ I.M.C.A.#3667 ]-----
http://www.Meteoryty.pl marcin(at)meteoryty.pl
http://www.PolandMET.com marcin(at)polandmet.com
http://www.Gao-Guenie.com GSM: +48 (793) kosmos
--------[ Member of Polish Meteoritical Society ]--------




----- Original Message -----
From: "Martin Altmann" <altmann at meteorite-martin.de>
To: <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
Sent: Tuesday, July 07, 2009 4:23 PM
Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Yet another gimmicky
expensivemeteorite"collectable"


> 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
> ..........................................................
>
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Received on Tue 07 Jul 2009 11:33:09 AM PDT