[meteorite-list] NYT story

From: star-bits at tx.rr.com <star-bits_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Tue, 5 Apr 2011 17:39:22 -0400
Message-ID: <20110405213922.ULH10.145580.root_at_cdptpa-web10-z01>

   I was driving home on Friday when a guy called and identified himself as a reporter from the NY Times. He said he talked to this scientist (I didn't catch the name) who thought collectors were bad for meteorite studies and then he said he talked to Anne Black and she said that was B*** S***! I remember thinking that I doubted Anne used that phrase ;-) He asked me about gebel kamil and exporting it from Egypt. I told him I knew of no law in Egypt that even mentions meteorites let alone making export illegal. I told him that there were laws about artifacts, but they don't mention meteorites and meteorites are not artifacts. I never said I thought I was "beyond" Egyptian law because my gebel kamil was purchased in the USA, I just didn't know of any law that applied. Conversation ended quickly after that. The photo of the "looted" 60 gram piece is not one of mine.

   I was surprised to be the featured bad guy/dealer in the article. According to my cell phone the whole conversation lasted only 4 minutes and 26 seconds. The response on my end has been rather quiet, 3 new customers, 2 people who wanted their hematite identified as a meteorite, one guy from the Harvard business school who thought we should get with the scientists and come up with a classification system because that would make everybody happy and the meteorites worth more (told him the reporter forgot to mention such a thing already existed), one guy that thought it was an interesting story and wanted help make an Indiana Jones type movie out of it (sent him to Mike Farmer), and one liberal retard who vented not only on stealing history, destroying the environment, but also on Arizona psychos selling automatic weapons etc, etc, etc. Another quiet day at the office.

Eric Olson

http://www.star-bits.com
Received on Tue 05 Apr 2011 05:39:22 PM PDT