[meteorite-list] Chelyabinsk: six months of eBay sales

From: Galactic Stone & Ironworks <meteoritemike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Thu, 29 Aug 2013 23:18:08 -0400
Message-ID: <CAKBPJW_A4LmLSt9aRKAEFZMyyCefvSacbWY+3XBtvRfy_dicsw_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hi Richard,

Spot on and right. Same here. Buying directly from the finder cannot
be beat for provenance purposes. It doesn't get better than that.
Buying directly from a finder who publicly documented their entire
trip, every step of the way (including the vodka hangovers!), is
priceless. It's well worth an increased premium to have that extra
story, photos, and details that can only come straight from the
finder. Good stuff there. :)

In fairness, I have bought from middle-men and dealers also, and have
gotten some great deals. But I really don't mind paying more for
having that extra documentation and provenance that only comes
directly from the finder.

Best regards and happy huntings,

MikeG

-- 
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On 8/29/13, Richard Montgomery <rickmont at earthlink.net> wrote:
> Howdy List,
> Regarding Chelyabinsk specimens and their varying prices and more:  I wasn't
>
> able to go there, and in another situation we all may have...but I bought
> one stone from Michael, and a variety of peas from Rob, simply because THEY
>
> were there, part of the recovery story.  I was willing to (gladly) agree to
>
> terms (both extremely competitive and reasonable) because of their story
> behind the recovery.  Meteorites, and their recovery.  Nice pedigree
> Richard M
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Galactic Stone & Ironworks" <meteoritemike at gmail.com>
> To: "Matson, Robert D." <ROBERT.D.MATSON at saic.com>
> Cc: "Meteorite List" <meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
> Sent: Thursday, August 29, 2013 4:11 PM
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] Chelyabinsk: six months of eBay sales
>
>
>> Hi Rob,
>>
>> This is awesome.  Some of the numbers are interesting, if not surprising.
>>
>> Average cost per gram is about typical for OC falls in Russia - a
>> little less than US/Canada/Europe falls and more than most Saharan
>> falls.
>>
>> However, given the global attention Chelya received and the massive
>> shockwave (a first of this scale in modern history, second only to
>> Carancas.), the price seems a like a bargain for collectors.  $11/gram
>> for an unprecedented fall - if the Chelya body had exploded lower in
>> the atmosphere, the effects would have been catastrophic.  Windows
>> blown out for miles.  Building collapsed.  Thousands of injured
>> witnesses. Captured world attention for months and is still getting
>> press.  It's gorgeous when cut.  It's gorgeous when fresh and uncut.
>> It's arguably a hammer fall - surely something was struck by that
>> widespread shower of stones, and if not, the shockwave damage should
>> qualify for collector "hammer" purposes.  This fall has everything
>> collectors want and it was a global wake-up call for the entire world
>> to be more cognizant of the other small asteroids/comets targeting our
>> fragile blue marble.
>>
>> At $11/g, this is a steal.
>>
>> Of course, as you said Rob, this number itself doesn't take into
>> account the notations you made about quality/type of material, and
>> this material shows a lot of faces - fresh, weathered, IMB lithology,
>> "regular" lithology, dual lithology, anomalous specimens (inclusions,
>> weirdness), cut and uncut.  I am guessing the $11/g number is seen
>> with a few lucky eBay snipers and/or the more weathered and less
>> attractive pieces.
>>
>> Myself, I have paid up to $40 a gram for Chelyabinsk - depending on
>> the situation.  I paid $40/g for gorgeous beautiful uncut stones that
>> were almost-pristine and free of oxidation. I paid substantially less
>> for tiny crumbs or weathered frags.
>>
>> 22.1 kilos seems a bit small for a fall that likely produced much more
>> material on the ground than the eBay total suggests.  (who knows what
>> is sitting at the bottom of Lake Chebarkul, rotting in the chilly
>> muck.)  Of course, this is still a useful number because it can be
>> compiled with known quantities that entered the market outside of eBay
>> - some of which likely ended up being flipped on eBay.
>>
>> Nice work Rob.  I'd love to see the spreadsheet.
>>
>> Best regards,
>>
>> MikeG
>>
>> --
>> -------------------------------------------------------------
>> Web - http://www.galactic-stone.com
>> Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/galacticstone
>> Twitter - http://twitter.com/GalacticStone
>> Pinterest - http://pinterest.com/galacticstone
>> -------------------------------------------------------------
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On 8/29/13, Matson, Robert D. <ROBERT.D.MATSON at saic.com> wrote:
>>> Hi All,
>>>
>>> If anyone is interested, for the past 6 months I've been compiling the
>>> closing prices, masses and sellers of eBay Chelyabinsk meteorite sales
>>> in an Excel spreadsheet. The dataset is quite large now (1250 points)
>>> and includes all eBay sales of Chelyabinsk masses greater than or equal
>>> to 3 grams. (Best-offer sales were not included since that price is not
>>> reported by eBay.) There were a few sales that did not provide masses
>>> (though clearly higher than my 3-gram cutoff), but since I was
>>> interested
>>> in tracking the price-per-gram metric, I excluded them.
>>>
>>> A summary:
>>>
>>> Total auctions: 1250
>>> Period covered: 2/27/2013 - 8/28/2013
>>> Total mass: 22192.6 grams
>>> Total cost: $248,393
>>> Average price-per-gram: $11.19
>>>
>>> Since price-per-gram obviously depends a great deal on the quality of
>>> the specimen (percentage of crust, overall shape, degree of weathering,
>>> whether IMB or not, evidence of orientation, presence of flow lines or
>>> roll-over lips, etc.) I tried to add notes for each sale estimating the
>>> percentage of crust, presence of weathering, whether the specimen
>>> appeared to be an IMB, or anything else I thought relevant.
>>>
>>> If enough people are interested in the spreadsheet, rather than email it
>>> individually to each person perhaps someone can host it for me.
>>>
>>> Having spent over 30 hours over the last 6 months compiling all this
>>> data, I probably won't continue to update it much longer. I figured
>>> the nearly quarter-million-dollar sales mark was a good hopping off
>>> point to mention it on the List. I think you'll find the master plot
>>> of the PPG over time quite interesting, and I wouldn't be surprised if
>>> this is the most detailed price history of a meteorite ever constructed.
>>>
>>> Best wishes,
>>> Rob
>>>
>>> ______________________________________________
>>>
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Received on Thu 29 Aug 2013 11:18:08 PM PDT