[meteorite-list] AD, New Meteorite Men Collectible on Ebay Closing on Thursday Night

From: MeteorHntr at aol.com <MeteorHntr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 2009 11:51:39 EDT
Message-ID: <d68.46b10ca6.378f550b_at_aol.com>

Hello List,

I am excited to announce the prototype to a new line of meteorite
collectibles Geoff Notkin and I are working on. Several years ago, I put some
pieces of Brenham Shale in a plastic "slabs" as a test as a Limited Edition
Collectible at the Haviland Kansas Meteorite Festival, they seemed to go over
well. I then took it a step further and made six different slabs holding
dust from various meteorites (Moon Dust, Mars Dust, etc).

I put that project on the back burner, until revisiting the concept with
Geoff now.

These slabs are manufactured for the rare coin industry and are quite
popular in that industry. The slim clear plastic cases also work great for
holding thin part slices of meteorites as well.

With our TV show "Meteorite Men" airing on Science Channel, more people
are being introduced to the world of meteorite collecting, and as such we
thought it would be nice to make it a little easier for them to get started
with meteorites with a little different packaging.

Of course, most all of you on the Meteorite List are not in need of help
in getting started collecting, but we wanted to get your feedback on this as
well.

Some of you remember our limited run of Brenham part slices in Lucite from
Tucson. These were quite popular, but at $99 they were priced out of the
range of a lot of beginning collectors. We wanted to have something in the
$3 to $50 retail price range to offer.

We are expecting that more "Meteorite Men" episodes will be coming in the
near future. If more TV episodes do materialize, then we will almost
certainly take these slabbed meteorites collectibles up to a far more
professional level in appearance, as well as with a wider selection of available
specimens. But for now, this is what we have.

Some of these will slabbed specimens in the future will not be limited
editions, where we would most likely set the retail price and then make as
many as the market would continue to buy. While others will be limited to a
just a few limited number specimens, in some case a very limited number.

So we have made a "prototype" assortment of limited edition meteorites
encased in the slabs, and we have some of them up on Ebay right now. Getting
the exact same size part slice for each of a limited edition of 20 pieces,
for example, would be very hard to do. With low priced per gram material,
it is not a big deal, as they can all be priced all the same. But with
more rare material, the actual value of the specimen could differ greatly base
upon the weight of the slice.

Then there is the value of the item as a collectible. It is so hard to
predict what the values should be, as that is so subjective. Ask some
people, and they will say the collectible factor is not even worth $1.00. If our
TV show does go to series, and becomes a big hit, and we start cranking
out thousands of these specimens in slabs, then the first ones out in this
batch theoretically could become more valuable up and beyond the raw value of
the meteorite specimen enclosed in it. Why are some rare coins with the
same about of silver in them worth more than others? Why are some baseball
cards worth more than others? It all has a bit to do with supply and
demand.

The demand is real low for these right now, since (relatively speaking) no
one knows about us, or these items, yet.

Some of these specimens are almost impossible to find on the market, while
some are very common. Some are exotic types, others more common. The
numbers available of each range from 6 up to 27, so there is a wide range on
the availability factor.

So, I have put some of these up on Ebay with a 3 day listing.

We hope some of you buy these at what will be a fair price right now, and
we hope they later become worth a lot more. In addition to making the
buyers happy, and us happy, it would really tweak one person out there! :-)

So, I am starting each of these at $0.99, with no reserve, and we will see
where they go.

Also, I have one complete set with all 18 specimens, all numbered #4, up
for auction in one lot. In this prototype run, the lower the number the
BIGGER the specimen enclosed. So many of the #4 specimens are much larger
than the others being listed here on the same night. Remember that when
looking to

The Colony, OK specimen only has 6 units. And the #6 unit is up for sale
as an individual with this batch. So, at the most, there is only going to
be 5 complete sets available. In fact, this one full set might be the only
complete set that will go on sale as such.

Check them out here:

http://stores.ebay.com/Steve-Arnold-Meteorites?refid=store

Please look at the listings, and feel free to respond to me off list if
you would like to share some comments, or ask questions.

Also, if you are one of the people who eventually buys one, please check
back with me on your opinion of these after they arrive and you get to see
them in person.

Thanks,

Steve Arnold
of "Meteorite Men"


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Received on Wed 15 Jul 2009 11:51:39 AM PDT