[meteorite-list] Koenigsbrueck, Saxonia is a hot desert find-Fakes even in Morocco!

From: michael cottingham <mikewren_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 28 Jul 2009 09:37:55 -0700
Message-ID: <B2AC25F6-E61C-4211-B06B-53DC906751D7_at_gilanet.com>

Hello,

Just a quick and funny side note. When Mike Farmer and I were making
those first trips to Morocco, I remember on trip #1 going to a house
where we were told a "New" iron meteorite was located. When we got
there the owner brought out the "new" iron for us to see and purchase.
Mike and I looked at it and then each other, it took us about 42
seconds to see that it was an NANTAN! No doubt what so ever. I was
thinking wow, even over here with thousands upon thousands of desert
meteorites at their feet, they are still trying to pull a fast one!
Go figure.

Best Wishes

Michael Cottingham




On Jul 28, 2009, at 9:20 AM, John Gwilliam wrote:

> Several years ago, when the NWAs started showing up in large
> amounts, there were several people on this list (including myself)
> who were concerned about "false finds" being submitted as new
> meteorites. It doesn't take dishonest people too long to figure out
> that a common meteorite purchased at a show can be planted in some
> new location where a new find would bring a lot of money.
>
> I don't know how this can be prevented or avoided, but it's pretty
> obvious that dealing with people you know very well is a step in the
> right direction.
>
> Just four days after Jack Schrader announced his first finds of the
> latest Arizona fall, I got a phone call from a guy in Southern
> Arizona who claimed he had a new Arizona meteorite he had found
> three and a half years ago and he was going to sell it at auction.
> He wasn't clear about what kind of auction he intended to use, but I
> got the idea he was going to offer it to whoever offered him the
> highest "bid" over the phone.
>
> I get so many calls like this I was going to tell the man I wasn't
> interested but decided to ask him a few questions. His answers were
> typical and somewhat amusing. The find location was somewhere in
> Southern Arizona, but he wouldn't narrow it down any more than that.
> He claimed the first test he had done was a fire assay. Hmmmm, seems
> like a weird test for a meteorite. Next, when asked what the
> classification was, he said it was an anomalous achondrite with 28%
> nickel. He had sliced the nearly 2 kilo stone and had a ~750 gram
> slice that was full of metal veins. To get the metal to show up
> better he had etched the slice with pure nitric acid. as I asked
> more questions, his answers got more evasive.
>
> Sure hope I didn't miss out on a good deal, but my common sense told
> me to take a pass.
>
> There's nothing to prevent someone from offering an inexpensive NWA
> meteorite as a new find. As long as they stick to their story it's
> near impossible to prove them wrong. It has happened to me a few
> times so I'm guessing it has happened to other List members as
> well. Is there a solution to this? I guess only time will tell.
>
> Best from sunny Arizona where we're expecting 115F today,
>
> John Gwilliam
>
>
>
>
>
> At 07:16 AM 7/28/2009, Martin Altmann wrote:
>> Hello list,
>>
>> because I couldn't find it mentioned yet on the list here.
>>
>> In the last German meteorite, a "find" made in 2004 in Saxonia by a
>> moldavites hunter,
>> typical weathering feautures of hot desert meteorites were found.
>> So it was a fake.
>>
>> Hopefully K?nigsbr?ck will be soon removed from the Meteorite
>> Bulletin
>> Database?
>>
>> Unfortunately I still find there another skeleton in the cupboard
>> of German
>> meteorites listed as an official meteorite.
>>
>> Inningen, Bavaria, 1998.
>>
>> The Ni-content and the trace element data are consistent with
>> Sikhote-Alin
>> and the piece is a typical shrapnel.
>> (That's why no structural type had could been determined).
>>
>> >From impact dynamics we all know, that shrapnels are produced only
>> by
>> impacts of major iron masses.
>>
>> Inningen was a single 1.2kg specimen, "found" on a road.
>>
>> It's highest time after 10 years now, I'd say, to remove Inningen
>> from the
>> Catalogue or at least to mark it as doubtful.
>>
>> (That becomes more and more a fashion to fake finds. A while ago
>> someone in
>> Germany claimed to have found a Gibeon in a quarry - and 2 weeks
>> ago a
>> German tried me to sell a meteorite he had found here by his own - an
>> indochinite!)
>>
>> Best!
>> Martin
>>
>>
>>
>>
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>
> John Gwilliam
>
> Too many people were born on third base
> and go through life thinking they hit a triple.
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Received on Tue 28 Jul 2009 12:37:55 PM PDT