[meteorite-list] Meteorite Auction Days Numbered?

From: Eric Wichman <eric_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 23 Sep 2011 22:56:47 -0700
Message-ID: <4E7D711F.1050402_at_meteoritesusa.com>

The writing has been on the wall for a while now. Hopefully I'm wrong...
With all the fuss over the years with suspect and obvious fake
meteorites on Ebay, misleading and incorrect information and
identification of terrestrial stones claimed as meteorites by
inexperienced folks trying to make a quick buck on that lava rock they
found in their driveway "that wasn't there yesterday". Problems of
international shipping and the tightening of export laws in other
countries which govern, or at least try to govern the exportation of
meteorites.

Ebay is starting to take measures to prohibit meteorite sales on their
"international" sites, as per a recent post on the Met-List a little
while ago. (I'm assuming some dealers used to list items internationally
on multiple international Ebay sites like others have, but now Ebay is
seemingly prohibiting this practice. Hopefully this is not a sign of
things to come.)

Recent posts about suspect Lunar meteorites, and the numerous other
"suspect" and supposed meteorites that get listed on Ebay, the countless
emails from meteorite dealers to Ebay about apparent and obviously
fraudulent Ebay auctions featuring fake meteorites doesn't really help.
This coupled with the ambiguous and non-standard international export
and import laws in other countries regarding meteorites, I think selling
meteorites on Ebay might become a thing of the past. There are too many
other products with much less hassle and risk for Ebay to allow to be
listed, without dealing with the liability of the possibility of suspect
and or blatantly fraudulent meteorite auctions which might cause buyers
undo loss, or inadvertent proliferation of non-meteoritic material
throughout the meteorite community. This causes much confusion on what a
meteorite really looks like, and identification of meteorites by
psuedo-experts, and backyard meteorite hunters who quickly list their
"find" on Ebay hurts the community, and ultimately the science. Not that
Ebay cares about that, but if any of these things increase their risk,
and meteorites become too much of a liability, or it costs them too much
money to wade through the possible legal and/or business policy disputes
that arise from meteorite listings, then they would have no reason to
continue to allow meteorites to be listed.

Meteorite auction days on Ebay might just be numbered.

Regards,
Eric
Received on Sat 24 Sep 2011 01:56:47 AM PDT