[meteorite-list] Martin's Wisdom - Was "Yet another gimmicky expensive meteorite collectable"

From: Galactic Stone & Ironworks <meteoritemike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 7 Jul 2009 12:58:29 -0400
Message-ID: <e51421550907070958m27cec4barf571edf720ddef4e_at_mail.gmail.com>

Martin said -

"Gosh perhaps we should buy 1001 IMCA-Teddy-Bears and whenever we meet one of
the old protectionists, we could bombard him with that stuff and scream: We
love meteorites, we love you, we want to help you, we want to bring you so
much meteorites more, which you never would get else and which you never
would get funded...."

So true. So funny. I just blew coffee out of my nose. LOL

--------------------------------------

I hereby resolve, in full view of the List, to go back through the
archives and save all of Martin's best postings about this issue - and
with his blessing (if I can get it), I'd like to piece them all
together into some kind of collection on the subject. Perhaps a
webpage with a "best of" list of quotations and statistics. Martin
has written extensively and frequently on this and he must be
exhausted from it. Even a man of manic typing speed can see the time
involved in writing his postings - not even accounting that he is
doing it (masterfully) in a second language. It is a shame to leave
them buried in the archives where only the converted can see. As he
said, this information is not secret - it is out there for anyone to
find. The problem is, the people who NEED to read it are not going to
look for it because it's buried in the Met Bulletin Database and in
works of limited availability like the Catalogue of Meteorites. Even
Burke's Cosmic Debris should be required reading for those who seek to
legislate meteorites - it illustrates well the power struggles behind
the scenes regarding the legitimacy of meteorites - lessons which
would apply well to the issue at hand.

Best regards,

MikeG



On 7/7/09, Martin Altmann <altmann at meteorite-martin.de> wrote:
> Ah Mike and Steve,
>
> it's not a big thing. Each child can do these tiny stats,
> and each professional meteoriticist, would need to come to these simple
> conclusions, because he knows where to find the Bulletin Database on web,
> not more than 5 to 10 minutes.
>
> And that's why I'm often so impatient.
> Because the data are so clear and the opposite of a secret.
> And sometimes so shocked (e.g. when I had read that the former president of
> MetSoc.....ooops, - and so often not diplomatical, therefore shhhhhht).
>
> But in general,
> cause I'm sometimes asked by people, who found on web an article about
> meteorites,
> or often also by friends, who have nothing to do at all with meteorites,
> some of them scientists in other fields, but also "ordinary" people like you
> and me,
>
> and with them, if you only present the numbers and figures
> (which everybody could find out more or less easily in web),
>
> Then they are more than astonished about what's going on in the meteorite
> world.
> Because nobody can understand, what unfortunately is going on in meteorite
> science and politics regarding the very meteorites. Cause it's highly
> inefficient and illogical.
>
> With figures and numbers I mean:
>
> The find rates:
>
> In Antarctica,
> In desert countries.
> In countries with protectionist laws before and after
> In countries without protectionist laws.
> Of "private" parties
> Of "official" expeditions.
> The find rates before the desert rush.
> The find rates during the desert rush.
> The weights of the finds from everywhere
> The weights of the "interesting" types among these.
>
> The monetary aspects:
>
> The costs of the Antarctic campaigns.
> The costs of the "official" expeditions.
> The costs of meteorites on "the market"
> The volume of traded meteorites in total.
> The costs of meteorites in history.
> The costs of meteorites today.
> The budget of universities and museum to acquire meteorites today
> The budget of universities and museum to acquire meteorites spent yesterday.
> The budgets of universities for acquisitions in other departments.
> The costs for branches of science dealing with similar questions like
> meteoritics.
> The costs for space-flight missions with mineralogical objections.
>
> (O.k sometimes too the prices and values for meteorites, given in media or
> launched there by some of the protectionism advocacies. The incomes of a
> meteorite dealer...)
>
>
> And believe. NOBODY can understand why so few is done for meteorites from
> the official science side or why not more advantage is taken from the new
> finds
> and why not all are happy about that what has taken place during the last
> years.
>
>
> And in fact I have no influence on that.
> I see scientists, who agree with my and the opinion of the majority about
> that nonsense.
> I see scientists, who are happy about the new finds and prices and take
> advantage of it.
> I see scientists, who want to take advantage of these paradisiac times,
> but can't due to a sometimes complete cut-back of their budgets.
> I see scientists, who think, that someone like we are criminals.
>
> And I think the majority never got aware of this funny situation,
> because meteorites, meteoritics, meteorism is so extremely special,
> cause else the museum and labs would be full of the new finds,
> we wouldn't have these sick legal discussions
> and all in the meteorite world scientists, collectors, curators, dealers,
> hunters, planetologists, and even the tax-payers would be happy and would
> live happily ever after
> and unlike now and in the following years, the flow of incoming new finds
> revealing us more and more the secrets about our solar system
> would never run dry.
>
> And it even wouldn't cost a thing.
> But obviously we're not intelligent enough,
>
> and honestly, I'm getting tired to occupy myself with always the same mess,
> which nobody understands - I rather like to do our meteorites, the stones,
> until they will have closed down each and every country.
>
> Everything further to that topic would be recurrent and anyway we have no
> credibility at those persons, who have to be convinced, cause we're dealers
> and collectors - so anybody else is better capable to show the trivial and
> evident facts than me.
>
> And I'm tired to play the squaller.
> Our job is, like the other hunters and dealers too, to continue to deliver
> the rarest of the rare, the types, which the "official" side doesn't find or
> hardly finds and to deliver them at so low costs which they never can met or
> to make it possible for them at all due to the low costs to get them in
> their institutes, which they never could afford else and to deliver them to
> those, who appreciate our work.
>
> So please maybe others instead of me could be the Cassandra or Pandora or
> whatever for legendary grouches existed.
>
> I mean, it's in our all own interest.
> Or at least in the interest of all these who LOVE meteorites
> or who do that great research on meteorites.
>
> Because if they don't care, nobody will care
> And we have to be aware, that the World will turn around also without
> meteorites.
>
>
> ...man, I even have not a minute time to learn a better English...
>
> Gosh perhaps we should buy 1001 IMCA-Teddy-Bears and whenever we meet one of
> the old protectionists, we could bombard him with that stuff and scream: We
> love meteorites, we love you, we want to help you, we want to bring you so
> much meteorites more, which you never would get else and which you never
> would get funded....
>
> Stamp collecting is also fine,
> but we learn so few from them about the universe.
>
> So. And now I have to apply for a job as cook on the Suisse-Omani
> expeditions. - I have to look ahead for the post-desert time.
> So I will be able to see at least a few weathered OCs on my working place to
> have a certain continuity.
>
> Cheers,
> Martin
>
> Disclaimer: These and all postings are solely my opinion.
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Galactic
> Stone & Ironworks
> Gesendet: Dienstag, 7. Juli 2009 16:41
> An: Martin Altmann
> Cc: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Yet another gimmicky
> expensivemeteorite"collectable"
>
> Hi Martin and List,
>
> Well analyzed Martin. Reading your posts on these matters is like
> receiving an education. Now if we could just get the governments in
> question to read this list and consider what Martin has written
> extensively on, then we might see a return to reason.
>
> It is in nobody's best interest to restrict the search for, discovery
> of, and trade of meteorites.
>
> Best regards and clear skies,
>
> MikeG
>
>
>
> On 7/7/09, Martin Altmann <altmann at meteorite-martin.de> wrote:
>> 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
>>> ______________________________________________
>>> http://www.meteoritecentral.com
>>> Meteorite-list mailing list
>>> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
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>>> ______________________________________________
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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
>> ..........................................................
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>> http://www.meteoritecentral.com
>> Meteorite-list mailing list
>> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>>
>
>
> --
> .........................................................
> 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
> ..........................................................
> ______________________________________________
> http://www.meteoritecentral.com
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>
> ______________________________________________
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> Meteorite-list mailing list
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> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>

-- 
.........................................................
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 12:58:29 PM PDT