[meteorite-list] My daughter Lauren is getting married in 2 weeks AD sale!

From: Steve Arnold <meteorhntr_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sun, 2 Sep 2012 22:39:13 -0400 (EDT)
Message-ID: <8CF57946FF3E48F-10A8-79414_at_webmail-d083.sysops.aol.com>

Hello List,

Many of you have met my elder daughter Lauren In Tucson Show the
several times she has been there with me over the years.? Well, In just
2 weeks Lauren is getting married!? I know, it is hard to believe, and
that you all remember her when she was just "this" tall.? Well, it is
true, and her mother and I are very excited.

And we wanted to take this opportunity toinvite ALL of you to... help
us pay for it!

I have some bills with the wedding still to pay for, andsome other
non-wedding bills as well, and so I am very motivated to make somegreat
deals this week.? Up for negotiation are someof the following:

Gibeon Anvil Slices. Reduced to $499.? Originally Priced at $900, for a
VERY LIMITED TIME, and for a LIMITED number of slices, I am reducing
the price per slice to $499 each!? Yes, you read that correctly.? Just
$499. If you didn't read my post to the list on Aug 7, I have copied at
the bottom of this email AND the current issue of Meteorite Magazine
has a great story about the specimen written by my wife Qynne.? I will
consider cutting one slice into halves or into 4 quarters if and only
if I have all (two or four) parts spoken for, and the cost per half
will be $299 and the cost per 1/4 will be $199.? All slices are priced
the same, no matter how thick or how big, as each slice tells the same
story.? Please ask for specific details.? Photos can be seen here:?
http://s361.photobucket.com/albums/oo52/stevearnoldpmh/Gibeon%20Anvil%20Slices/

Gibeon Anvil Main Mass, 41kg.? $410,000? OK, I am joking.? I really
don't know what it is worth, and not sure what I would sell it for, but
I would entertain any offer that included at least a nice chunk of cash
and possibly some trade material.

Brenham Slices.? Some large 20 inch wide 600g to 2.5 kg oriented full
slices available and some part slices from the 351 kg oriented mass.?
Ask for details and prices.

Ash Creek individuals and slices.? I have a few Ash Creek individuals
and huge full slices available and am willing to deeply discount them.

Meteorite Magnets in large numbers at discounted prices., If anyone
wants $500 worth or $1000 worth of the meteorite Magnets personally
autographed by me that I sell on ebay,, I will sell in bulk at very
deep discounts.? These sell GREAT at shows where you set up and sell to
live people.

Meteorite Riker Sets in large numbers at discounted prices. I am
selling these like crazy out of my retail store.? Retail priced at
$9.99 up to $49.99, depending on the rock and the weight, these items
do GREAT.? See here:?
http://s361.photobucket.com/albums/oo52/stevearnoldpmh/Riker%20Box%20Sets/


Caldwell Kansas slices or larger chunks, Ask.

Fayetteville AR crumbs, Never on the market before, this fall happened
just 3 miles from the University of Arkansas campus. I only have a
couple of grams of crumbs. Go Hogs!

Muonionalusta.? 14.8 kg mass.? Would chop in half or sell whole.? Make
offer.

Once I get enough money for pressing matters, the sale will go off. If
someone is really smart, I would not be surprised if someone would buy
a big assortment of my Gibeon Anvil slices and the sale will be over
before a lot of you even read this.? But, who knows, if something
interests you, check in with me just in case there is still time.

Thanks.

(Gibeon Anvil post from Aug 7 copied below)

Steve Arnold
Host of Science Channel's TV Series Meteorite Men
?????? www.ScienceChannel.com
Co-Founder Meteorites & More, 28 1/2 Spring St., Eureka Springs, AR
72632
President Palladot Inc, Extra-terrestrial Gemstones
?????? www.Palladot.com
Facebook:? MeteoriteMan??
Facebook:? SteveArnoldMeteorite
Facebook:? Meteorite Men
Ebay: ArnoldMeteorites
meteorhntr at aol.com


>From Aug. 7, 2012

Hello List,I am excited to announce that I now have available, for a
very limited time, a few full slices from a 51kg Gibeon meteorite that
was used as an anvil, possibly for hundreds, if not thousands, of
years.?Amazingly rare, historically significant, and way off the "Wow
Chart!"Gibeon is one of the largest strewnfields in the world, with
hundreds of large and thousands of smaller sizes specimens found since
science "discovered" it in 1836.? However, it is impossible to know how
many tons of this meteorite had been found and used for millennia
before 1836 by the natives in and around the huge Gibeon Strewnfield.?
It makes perfect sense that as people would find hunks of iron laying
around, that they would take hammer sized pieces, and make hammers out
of them, and take anvil sized pieces, and make anvils out of them and
take smaller sized pieces and forge tools such as hoes, scrapers,
knives, and spear points etc., out of those.Until now, I am an not
aware that any meteorite from Gibeon specimens to have shown any
definite traces of being altered due to being hammered upon while being
used as an anvil.?? Smaller pieces forged into thinner tools likely
would have rusted away after a few hundred years in the elements, so it
is not expected that many of them could have survived to modern
times.We have seen slices of iron meteorites that show where the
Widmanstatten lines have been bent and distorted due to tearing apart
of pieces in flight, possibly even by astroidial collisions in space.?
But those have their bends going only in one direction.In the August
2012 issue of Meteorite Magazine, my wife Qynne has authored a story
about how we acquired this piece and the slightly tragic events that
unfolded in me discovering that it wasn't just an "ordinary" Gibeon,
but rather that it was indeed an extra-ordinary one.? I don't want to
ruin your reading in the issue, but I will say that after I saw that
the Widmanstatten Structure was tremendously bent, not just in one
direction, but in four directions, I knew this was altered by man.?
(Picture a square square being hammered on it's edges to the point the
slices looked like the cross section of a hamburger and bun instead,
folded down on both sides of the top and folded up on both sides of the
bottom, and you will start to appreciate how this rock was distorted as
both the top and bottom surfaces had been flattened and rounded in
relentless poundings). ? I realized that it had indeed been hit, no
doubt hundreds of thousands of times to artificially shape it, and to
distort the normally straight Widmanstatten lines into amazingly curved
ones.?I originally chopped about 1/4 of an end piece off the mass,
before discovering the evidence that this was an anvil.? I immediately
contacted curators of the major collections, both institutional and
private, to see if any of them were interested in trading some "normal
Gibeon" (or other specimens) for either 1/4, or 3/4 or both pieces of
an anvil? ? There was no expressed interest, so I decided to turn the
cutting over to a pro, and let Marlin Cilz slice the end piece into 19
slices and a smaller end piece.Marlin ran into some challenges on
etching the slices, as it seems evident that the mass was artificially
heated.? Not heated to the point that all the pattern was lost
completely, only that the pattern is faded, so that unlike the normal
pattern one usually sees in Gibeon slices, where it is sharp and crisp,
and where it "pops" very clearly and quickly when etched in acid, the
etching took quite a long time to allow a much deeper etch to reveal
the contorted lines in an appreciable visible state.? I had Marlin send
most of the slices back to me unetched so I could test various methods
of etching to see what would show off this very special alteration the
best.?Various methods and various times in the solutions produced
different looks and different results.? All of which were hard to
capture in photographs, and yet when holding the slices in your hands,
allowing some light to strike the raised bands while other light
hitting the deeper etched surfaces made for really amazing slices to
behold. ? Meanwhile, not all the testing resulted in ideal results.?
Sometimes a slice would get over etched.? Other times the acid
neutralizer would work too much and seem to "stain" the what should
have been a nicely finished slice.? Other times, the etching acid would
not immediately get neutralized and some would leach out? from the
"cavities" of the squished regmaglipts on the sides that had long ago
been hammered shut.? Neutralizing that hidden acid later would stop the
etching, but not until after the darker stains would have set in the
surface of the slice.? This would require the slice to be completely
sanded down and the whole process to be started all over again.During
all of this, I am wrestling with what to price this material at??Price
it too high, and no one will buy it. Price it to low, and I will
quickly sell out, only to have the savvy buyers resell it? (to those
not at the sale early enough) for higher prices more in line with what
the market really thinks it is worth.??? I could offer the first slice
at auction, and hope a very high price is set, then hope I can move the
other 18 at the same, or close to the same, price.? But that could be
problematic if one or two sell high, and no one else thinks any of the
others are worth it at those prices.These slices range from 163.1 grams
up to 459.7 grams, but each full slice really tells the exact SAME
story.? Yes, some are slightly wider, and some are slightly thicker
than others.? Some are a bit different in their aesthetic
characteristics, but remarkably, they are all very similar.? 20 years
 from now, when you see one of these slices in a museum, or in someone's
private collection, you will instantly be able to recognize it as to
what it is, if you take just a minute now to examine one or more of the
sets of photos from? these slices.? So, really, what difference is
there between a 163g full slice and a 459g full slice?? Not much,
except one is quite a bit thicker, and one is a bit taller and wider
than the other.? To the viewer of those two slices, there is the same
"Wow Factor"Therefore, I decided it was wrong to price these by the
gram.? All the slices, in my mind at least, are worth the same.? They
all tell the same story.However, I want to be fair and base the prices
on these to some extent on what the other 99.99999999999% of "Non-Anvil
Gibeon" slices out there are priced at.? Gibeon sells pretty easily up
over the $1/g range today.? Ebay has slices sell at the $1.25/g to
$2.00/g range day in and day out.? Sometimes a tad higher, sometimes a
tad lower.? So, a very limited number of slices, from a one in a
million specimen could probably be justified at 4 to 5 times the base
rate.? Some might argue that it is worth 10 times as much.? Some might
say that "rare" irons from other 51kg TKW masses that we see selling
now on the market at $20 per gram might be the right bench mark to set
this at.? With the historical implications, could one justify something
near the $100/g that other meteorites sell at that have distinct ties
with people in historical situations.I just don't know what it is
worth!? One day, we might be seeing this sell in the $10/g or $20/g or
$100/g range, who knows?? I think it is safe to say it is worth at
LEAST $1.25 to $2.00/g at a bare minimum.? If I trade off the large
uncut portion, and most of these slices end up in collections where the
owners don't want to let them go, where will someone down the road go
to get more of them?? It could take a person 1,000 years, of daily
pounding, with a sledge hammer, to get a similar 51 kilo rock to end up
looking like this one.? Even at minimum wage, that would cost a LOT to
make more of these once these sell out.Just the other day, a very
famous Damascus Steel knife maker walked into my Meteorite Store in
Eureka Springs, and we struck up a very interesting conversation.? As
you might guess, the conversation eventually turned to the Anvil and
the slices that I was at various degrees of preparation with, you could
see the spark in his eye light up.?? I can't make any promises at this
point, but don't be surprised if a few of these slices end up being the
contributing material in a very exclusive set of Anvil Meteorite
Damascus Knives.?? He asked about the prices of the slices, and I had
told him I had not settled in on a price yet, but had told him what I
kind of thought they were worth and he scoffed.? Not because he thought
the price was too high, but that because he regularly sells a completed
knife for much more than that, and that possibly we should consider
making 19 knives, and use a little bit from each full slice to make
each knife, and then bundle the almost full slice in a package deal
with the knife that is made from the piece as a set.?? We could use the
other uncut part of the mass to actually hammer the knives out on, at
least long enough for the photo op!? The temptation to totally forget
taking these to the meteorite community altogether was inviting. ?
After talking with him, I get the feeling there might be more knife
collectors out there in the world than there are meteorite collectors.?
If that is the case, maybe these are worth a lot more than I think they
are.?Meanwhile, I do want to sell some slices in the short term.? I
want to raise some money.? My daughter is getting married in just over
a month, and as such I have some bills to pay.? And besides, I think I
owe it to meteorite community to offer at least a few of these to
them.So, I have decided to price ALL 19 slices at a flat price of $900
each.?So, if you want the biggest slice at 459.7 grams, that would be a
price of? $1.95/g.So, if you want the smallest slice at 163.1 grams,
that would be a price of $5.52/g.The 10 largest being over 316 grams,
which is just $2.85/g.Honestly, I think that is a bargain even at the
$5.52/g.Stop an think about it...how many people probably used this
Anvil to SIGNIFICANTLY improve their and their neighbor's lives out on
the Savannah of Africa?? And while there is no way to know when it was
actually used, one's imagination can easily picture that possibly long
before "civilized culture" reached their "Iron Age" in other parts of
the world, there was a pocket of people within the Gibeon Strewnfield
richly enjoying prosperity above anyone else on the planet, because of
this amazing gift of iron from the heavens.? And for less than a
thousand bucks, you can own and hold one of only 19 slices of this
amazing? tool that, no question about it, altered hundreds if not
thousands of lives, all? for the better!Wow.? After proofreading that
last paragraph, maybe I should ask $2,000 per slice?Seriously, this is
off the charts on the "Wow Factor."?? Place one of these slices into
someone's hands, and they just might have a religious experience.I will
promise to offer at least 10 of the 19 slices for sale for $900 each
for the next week.? I do want to reserve the right to hold at least 9
aside (I am assuming they will be the smaller slices, but I will let
the buyers decide on a first come first served basis) until the details
of the knife deal are figured out.SPECIAL NOTE:? Not all of the slices
are finished to perfection.? Some of the slices have been finished with
some glaring blemishes.? Brown stains on some, poor etching, leaving
not the best looking etch on others.?? I had two choices:? 1. Offer
only some that are ready to sell now, but not all, then offer the
others later when they are ready. ? Or: 2. Wait until all of them were
done to the best possible conclusion THEN put them all up to be sold at
the same time.If I was offering these at a price per gram, maybe the
the first option would have been a better option.? But since I am
offering them all at the same price, I didn't want to not show people
what all of them looked like, holding some out of the listing, only to
later introduce more and possibly make early buyers mad if they think a
better slice comes out later and they didn't get a shot at it.So,
PLEASE UNDERSTAND, some of the slices should be refinished, and I am
willing to work on them to finish them to the best of my ability at no
extra charge.? Also understand, that if the process of "finishing" or
in some cases "refinishing" them may require sanding and as such their
weight might decrease a fraction of a bit.? Also, I personally find a
tad bit of the browning of the "over etching" kind of nice, as it adds
some color for contrasting in the deeper etch.? No, it isn't always
super sharp silver and chrome and white-grey like a Rolex Gibeon Watch
Face, but damn it lets you see the bent lines pop out on the surface!??
I guess to each his own...besides, the real clean sharp etch is NOT
possible with these slices as the mass was artificially heated at least
to some degree.And of course, if you have any personal experience in
etching, as I know a lot of you do, you might feel free to tackle the
project of playing with this on your own to personally reach the
aesthetic ideal you like yourself.? If that is the case, buy them as
is, and go for it!In any case, I am convinced all these blemishes will
clean up, as they did in the many of the other slices, it will just
take time to rework them.I have put up multiple photos of all the
slices in their current state as of 8/6/2012 up on photobucket.?? As
time allows, I might refinish one slice at a time and replace the "old"
photos with new ones and adjust the weight as may be needed.NOTE ABOUT
THE PHOTOS:?? Some slices took better photos than others.? Honestly, I
was pleasantly surprised at how nice some of the photos came out, as it
was hard to tell at the time of taking them.? Others turned out not so
nice.?? Some slices are stained or have a poor etch, or the photos in
some areas just came out not so good.? Each slice is numbered in order,
so if you like something about one particular slice, but if there is
something you do NOT like about it, I invite you to look at both slices
on either side of it.? Odds are REAL GOOD that the same characteristics
can be found in the slice you like as the neighbors, even if you can't
see those characteristics in the one you are zeroing in on.? Maybe a
better polish, or better etch, or better photo will do those
characteristics more justice next time around.?If you really like a
slice, but want better or different photos take of it, let me know, and
I can work at playing with other light options to make them look the
best I can.Again, when you hold all of these in your hand, and slowly
rotate them where the light bounces just right off of the surface, they
are nothing short of amazing.You can see the slices at Photobucket
here:http://s361.photobucket.com/albums/oo52/stevearnoldpmh/Gibeon%20Anvi
l%20Slices/As always, first come first served.? Questions welcomed.?
Paypal is preferred, but I can take credit cards over the phone and
checks through the mail. But be sure to reserve your slice before you
pay.After cash sales are made in the first week, I may be open to
entertaining some trades, but I might be a tad stingy on value because
I really think these "retail" prices are VERY reasonable compared to
many other so called "retail" prices some put on other meteorites.? But
if you have no cash, but have trade material, and are interested, at
least let me know so I can get back with you shortly.Expect the largest
slices to sell first.The very small end piece and the large main mass
are for sale, and if interested, please contact me at:??
MeteorHntr at aol.comSteve Arnold








  
Received on Sun 02 Sep 2012 10:39:13 PM PDT