[meteorite-list] Professionals No Longer Sought

From: bill kies <parkforestmet_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2010 12:08:31 -0500
Message-ID: <SNT102-W469D2EC55C9E75A3B69889A2520_at_phx.gbl>

Martin said:
 
"why making it so complicated? What about a more trivial definition?"
 
Well Martin, thank you for the brief synopsis of Carl's opinion. It sure cleared things up in my mind ;)
 
I tend to view the word, professional, as more of an adjective describing those that provide impeccable service and/or performance. That adhere to the highest standards regarding their particular field of endeavor.
 
A meteorite seller doesn't have to be an expert or a dealer in order to be considered professional. And of course, as Carl mentioned, an unconditional guarantee is a must.
 
Bill
 
 


----------------------------------------
> From: altmann at meteorite-martin.de
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Sun, 10 Oct 2010 16:44:08 +0200
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Professionals No Longer Sought
>
> Hi there Carl,
>
> why making it so complicated? What about a more trivial definition?
> For meteorites:
> A professional is someone, who has a registered business and pays his taxes for that.
>
> Because the points you're listing to define a professionalist, you find in the meteoritic scene also with many, or most of, the "amateurs" (in the good meaning of the word). Collectors, collector/dealers, hobby hunters ect., who aren't perceiving themselves as professionals.
>
> Would also meet better the original meaning of the Latin word "professio", which is a public declaration.
>
> >To me it is this aspect in our Biz that is the most lacking.
>
> Excuse me, in which field of collecting do you have a better or even only an equivalent authentication process and such a safety standard as with meteorites?
>
> >Most collectible objects can be certified as authentic.
>
> And how does this certification process looks like there?
> Take fine arts. There you're going to an appointed expert, who you pay and who takes a look on your object and writes you a certificate. And there you are. And the result, whether he's going wrong or whether he's right depends only on his training and his experience. His opinion.
> Same with antiques or fossils ect. at best you go to a curator or a scientist at an university, who will tell you then his opinion, based on a comparative method.
>
> With meteorites?
>
> 1.) Meteorites get not authenticated by means of personal opinion or gut feeling.
> They have physical properties, which are measured and these results are reproducible at any time.
> And according these measurable properties, they unambiguously are authenticated as meteorites and
> classified.
>
> 2.) That classification is not done by private scholars or paid appraisers,
> but because the meteorites are in first line objects of research and not of commercial trade,
> by independent scientists. The best experts we have. And that authentication procedure is standardized
> and world-wide prescribed by the Meteoritical Society.
>
> 3.) Additionally to the classification from each meteorite a share has to be deposited for reference purposes
> at a public institution.
>
> 4.) All newly classified meteorites are recorded with their key data, place of reference specimen and often
> with the main mass holder in a central register, accessible for everyone, and they are published in the
> Meteoritical Bulletin.
>
> 5.) The NomCom of the Meteoritical Society is a board of international leading expert scientists.
> It is certainly more than a nod-through-club. It approves the plausibility of the reports handed in, before
> it decides to officially publish a new meteorite. If you send in all the results of the required
> measurements for a meteorite classification for a piece of charcoal - they won't accept it as a meteorite,
> neither will they wave through a classification handed in and made by yourself in your kitchen
> or by a music school.
>
> 6.) Many of the rarer types are introduced by scientists on their congresses, posters are made and over years
> you see scientific articles published about the very meteorite.
>
> 7.) The meteorite scene is extremely small. There is absolutely no problem for a beginning collector or a
> layman to come in contact with experienced collectors, competent meteorite people, even scientists to ask
> about the authenticity of his specimen, as well there are always other collectors, who own a specimen of
> the very meteorite, to compare it.
>
> 8.) There is none of the most expensive meteorites, hence those, where security is most crucial for the
> hehe: consumer, which wouldn't be best-known in the meteoritic community.
> Something like an anonymous Mona Lisa or an unknown mask of Agamemnon does not exist among mercantile
> meteorites.
>
> 9.) Everyone acting in the meteorite world underlies strictest necessities regarding authenticity.
> Those collectors and dealers, who only once sold a faked meteorite - they were and are immediately
> sorted out by the meteorite scene. They can't take part therein anymore, because reputation and trust
> are the fundament of that scene.
>
> 10.) You have IMCA, where everyone can address to, if he/her sees any problem with a meteorite and if his/her
> partner of a transaction is a member and many, if not meanwhile most of dealers and collectors, who
> frequently sell or swap meteorites are members there. They adhere to the highest standards of
> authentication and a high standard of "business conduct". And they do have a certain degree of competence,
> due to the procedures necessary to be accepted as a member, and they are self-monitoring to a certain
> degree. A fast glance into your daily ebay, will proof to you, that it works. Because those self-made
> meteorites, the pseudos, the fakes.. they are always offered by sellers, who are no IMCA-members.
>
>
> There. You see under what for a regimentation, obligations, responsibilities the actors - no matter whether professionalist or amateur are transacting regarding the certification of their meteorites. In fact, often after you got your new meteorite in, you have to wait two or three years, until it is officially authenticated and published, before you can start an official sale or swap.
>
> All that - I really don't know any other field of collectibles, where you have so many different layers of security and such a level of authentication like with meteorites.
> And therefore no other collecting hobby comes to my mind, which would be so extremely safe for the people, like meteorites.
>
> Look Carl, because you choose a Lunar as example, we're just distributing again some KREEP.
> You need only to throw the number into Google, and you'll find it on Randy Korotev's pages, Norbert Classen's site, in David Weir's studies, in the NASA Lunar meteorite compendium.
> And most important, you will find it in the Meteoritical Bulletin database, there also the holder of the main mass (who is in this case also the person, people are buying from. If they buy from a second, third, fourth hand then the piece is coming with our label, so that it can be traced back), our names they find in the IMCA member list, there they could ask anytime and independently, whether it is the real McCoy.
> And you will find a lot of scientific papers and publications about that material.
> If you check the authors of only the specialized publications about that KREEP,
> you'll see, that minimum 20 scientists from around the world have worked on that material
> and that at a lot of institutes, specialized and leading in that branch of science.
> And important: That all can be checked independently and relatively quickly by everyone, as long as he has an internet access.
> And that is no exception, you have that with all lunaites.
>
> And you know what?
> That you don't have with your assumed Duerer print, your Maya stela, your T-Rex-Claw, your Elvis curl, your splinter of the holy cross, your Lincoln autograph ect ect pp.
>
> Just remember the most recent fine arts forgery scandal, the forged paintings of the "Collection Werner Jaeger". So far a dozen or so are identified to be forged. They were sold by the most renown auction houses,
> like Christie's and Lempertz, in Paris, London, Cologne.. - with all their experts - and some of them are hanging in museums - again, with all their experts - and their true nature remained undetected for many, many years.
> And there we're not talking about 50$ for a Mekong-Iron, there we're talking about Pechstein, Ernst, Campendonk. The most expensive one of them was auctioned for 3.3 million USD.
>
> So Carl, you see, even with a meteorite specimen you're buying at 20 or 100 bucks, you have a much higher safety standard, certainty and security,
> than in the other fields of collectibles, where, if we take e.g. arts or antiques in extremo, the price paid for a single top specimen would pay the complete world-output of commercially traded meteorites of several years.
>
> Therefore, what do you can ask more?
>
> Ah and ebay, come on!
> Ebay is not the meteorite trade, ebay is a detail of meteorite trade.
> You see it by your own. The major part of the auctions there are specimens of mass finds.
> Everything else, mainly comes in small and smallest servings.
> Then there are some dealers, who use ebay exposing multi-k$-specimens as a shop-window.
> And finally you have the specialty dealers, who frequently sell there.
> But those announce if they are starting a mayor sale or introduce an exciting new meteorite,
> their auctions separately to the circles of experts, like here on the list.
> So they use it as a more comfort way to do their transactions, than e.g. to email around or to set up a website.
> Simple example, no layman would ever feel the desire to purchase from ebay let's say a slice of the new brachinite-like TFL-plotters. Cause for him, these slices are only a brown stone, he doesn't know about the particularities, why that material is more exciting than a Munionalusta or a NWA 869, and first and foremost, if he wants an authentic meteorite from space, then he finds in the same selling place 1000 much more budget pieces.
>
> And honestly, one hasn't to think about people, that they must be more stupid than they are.
> I never saw in my life, that any of these 10k$ - 1 million garden finds offered on ebay, ever was sold.
>
> As well as you don't buy your house, your Rembrandt, your head of Nefertiti in such a place like ebay.
>
> Really, and I mean
> Meteorites are something very special and extraordinary. You easily can see it - in each major city you find shops for minerals&fossils, antique shops, art shops, numismatic.... but never a meteorite store.
> So who the heck would come to the idea, to buy a meteorite from somebody, who tells uuuh I saw it fall and picked it up, my magnet from the fridge is sticking to it, therefore it is a meteorite or who tells that he found in the garret Grampa's forgotten meteorite, which is of course a lunar, cause Grandma told it.
> and especially that, where he finds parallely in the same selling place thousands of other offers, which observably are stemming from regular specialty dealers and/or expert collectors?
>
> And even if they have no ideas about meteorites, pomp and circumstances, then they still can choose to buy from an IMCA-member there and are safe then.
>
> And I mean,
> those people, who prefer to go with a hole in their teeth not to the dentist, but to the butcher,
> I suppose, those people can't be helped.
> And if I need some flowers, I go to a gardener or to a flower shop, but not to the baker.
>
> Sooo and before that posting get's too long, let's close the circle.
>
> > sell with a money back guarantee.
>
> (Anyway most meteorite people, not only the fulltime dealers are offering that.)
>
> But, and that would underline my suggestion for a more simple definition of "professional":
> Don't know, how it's in USA, but in Germany we have in this respect a very good consumer's protection.
> By law you are allowed to send back any good you have ordered in internet, by mail, from catalogues ect.
> without telling any reasons and that at full refund, if you ordered it from a "professional" shop or dealer.
> On German ebay it is therefore marked, whether the offered good stems from a commercial offerer or from a private offerer. With the latter, you have no such right to send the stuff back.
>
>
> All in all: Meteorite collecting is suuuuuuuuupersafe.
>
>
> Of course, if someone isn't willing or able to spend in the beginning a minimum of time, to learn only a little of the most basic knowledge about meteorites
> and/if someone is in the beginning not able or willing to concede a tiny leap of faith to the expert, he buys his first meteorites from, if he really doesn't know yet any,
>
> then he definitely should not collect meteorites.
>
> Though then, less than ever, he neither could collect fossils, art, coins, antiques, baseball cards and so on.
> Then he rather should choose a collecting field instead, where authenticity doesn't play a role,
> no idea, something like vinyl disks, orchids or vintage radio sets.
> Or he'd need a field of collecting, where he would be able to produce the collectibles by his own,
> like mushrooms or beetles.
>
> Cheers!
> Martin
>
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>
> -----Urspr?ngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von cdtucson at cox.net
> Gesendet: Samstag, 9. Oktober 2010 19:34
> An: davidgunning at fairpoint.net; meteoritelist
> Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Professionals No Longer Sought
>
> Dave,
> This is an interesting word "professional." Basically it does not mean much more than getting paid to do something.
> I prefer the term professionalism. Professionalism includes the conduct of what a professional does.
> Not only do they get paid but, they conduct themselves in a certain way including a long list of things;
> Respect for others is an important ism. Bad mouthing your competition is one of the un's in the ism.
> Ethics and Morals play a role in the isms as well.
> Trust and honor play a huge role as well.
> Having good business sense is key.
> Playing by the rules is important.
> Basic Business Knowledge can be huge.
> Knowledge in general also plays a huge role.
> In this Biz a basic Scientific and geology education is a great aid towards achieving the highest level of professionalism.
> Each of these areas can be broken down and defined but basically there are various degrees of professionals and ism based on these factors and a few more I may have missed here whether you get paid or not.
> To tackle your question about authenticity is a tough nut.
> Even Earth minerals require a certain amount of testing or opinion to verify authenticity but, meteorite identification is far more difficult because it's not quite as aesthetically driven as the mineral biz. As an example. A perfect diamond is flawless. Not so with a perfect meteorite. To me the perfect meteorite is the one in my possession. ha ha.
> Most dealers can identify most of the chondrites in general with a visual inspection. Beyond that the sky is the limit. Pun intended.
> Yes, there are many rules of thumb about meteorites but I cannot think of a single rule that cannot at some point become an exception to the rule.
> By that I mean if somebody came up with a rule book of meteorites there will always be rule breakers. So, we are involved in an industry that relies heavily on our Scientific counter parts.
> We not only rely on them we depend on them. For without a Scientists name on a piece of paper describing it , you have either a rock or a unclassified meteorite. Either one is almost worthless.
> To me it is this aspect in our Biz that is the most lacking. Sure we have great Scientists just not enough of them. Especially when it comes to Achondrites and odd irons such as Lovina. Many of these even the true Science professionals cannot agree on at first.
> Which brings us to the word "Legal" definition? This seems to be a bit of a gray area.
> Sure we can Google the word but there is no such thing as a *legal* meteorite. Not really.
> Most collectible objects can be certified as authentic. This adds confidence which converts to trust.
> With meteorites the only certification we have is in the name. Met soc certifies only the name. The rest is assumed accurate but not "legally" certified by anybody.
> I would like to know why this is but, as this was explained by Jeff Grossman as the case but not why.
> I think this is why eBay allows these crackpots to sell there rocks because nobody can prove them wrong through a listing alone. They may well be selling a true Lunar. Who knows unless it gets studied. Many of them even present their own testing results. I mean who could argue with that?
> To me the ultimate professional guarantees what they sell with a money back guarantee. Period.
> We are in a tough biz.
> My 2 more cents.
> Carl
> .
>
>
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Received on Sun 10 Oct 2010 01:08:31 PM PDT