[meteorite-list] Misabled/ poorly advertized "meteorites"

From: Michael Farmer <mike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2013 21:39:47 -0700
Message-ID: <AA365565-1BA0-4002-A5CC-2F655AEF539B_at_meteoriteguy.com>

I'm pretty sure the piece sold as Estherville is not a meteorite as well. It certainly does not match up with my other Estherville pieces.
I would like to know where this material originated. The labels are fake, and I am highly disappointed that this stuff has entered the market.

Michael Farmer

Sent from my iPad

On May 31, 2013, at 9:24 PM, "Jeff Kuyken" <info at meteorites.com.au> wrote:

> Hi Mike, all,
>
> As an Aussie, I can say with 100% absolute certainty that this isn't
> Murchison. It's not even close. In fact, I'm actually wondering it's a
> meteorite at all as it looks more like some type of porphyritic rock. The
> only meteorite I have seen that looks even remotely like this would be a CV3
> dark inclusion. But the rectangular fragment on the back side doesn't bode
> well for a chondritic meteorite either. It would be easier to tell
> in-person.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Jeff
>
>
> -----Original Message-----
> From: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] On Behalf Of Michael
> Farmer
> Sent: Saturday, 1 June 2013 12:52 PM
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Subject: [meteorite-list] Misabled/ poorly advertized "meteorites"
>
> Martin,
>
> I am sorry but this IS NOT Murchison, and the Estherville IS NOT
> Estherville.
> I emailed you regarding the Murchison and the fact that the photos clearly
> show an NWA type old carbonaceous chondrite only minutes after you posted to
> the list, and got no response.
> Anyone who has ever laid eyes on Murchison knows that it does not have
> desert varnish on the outside, nor white chondrules and CAI's on a CV3
> matrix.
> I feel sorry for whoever got burned on that one. You advertised the low
> price, I guess it is low because it is not Murchison.
>
> anyone reading this, feel free to speak up and tell us how this "Murchison"
> looks compared to real Murchison.
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Murchison_8_13_g_004.JPG
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Murchison_8_13_g_003.JPG
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Murchison_8_13_g_001.JPG
>
>
> I bought the Estherville which you claim is from American Meteorite
> Laboratory.
> I assumed since you advertised and showed a label that it was real, I was
> reading my email on an iphone while at the Laboratory in ASU, I showed the
> photo of the "Murchison" to the people in the lab who just laughed.
> My spider senses were not in order obviously because I went ahead and paid
> for the Estherville. I received it today, and it is NOT Estherville, I am
> pretty certain it is not a meteorite. The crust looks fake, or slaggy. I
> have more than 50 pieces of Estherville all from British Museum and
> Smithsonian, and this isn't close. Furthemore the lable is nothing more than
> a printed piece of paper laminated.
> I have the Nininger and Huss collections of meteorites books, and
> Estherville under Nininger is #42, Huss is H230. Again, some homework on my
> part would have caused me to not purchase this piece, but the price was good
> and I thought it would sell fast (I bought it in seconds). It is a firm
> reminder that something too cheap to be true, isn't!
>
> You piece has no number on the stone (
> Nininger and Huss both would have matched the number on the label and
> painted it on the stone).
> And the AML number on the fake label is not matched up to their normal
> numbers (yours is (2) 680.501. This is not a Nininger or Huss number
>
> You claim in your email (attached with this one below for all to read), that
> these pieces have their "passports" IE American Meteorite Laboratory labels
> as provenance, yet you deliver to me a fake printed laminated label done on
> a computer.
> Martin, this is NOT PROVENANCE, this is pretty much outright FRAUD!
>
> I know you have been doing meteorites for a while, and I know Murchison is
> easily one of the easiest meteorites to identify, so I have to question what
> is going on when such a false piece can pass the hands of such an
> experienced seller?
> This Estherville is not an Estherville, it is not a Nininger or Huss piece
> as advertised, and I do not think it is even a meteorite.
> I put in a request for refund via paypal, and now I am making the same
> request publically.
> I don't know where you got these but you got burned.
>
> I will deliver it by hand in Ensisheim or ship from Germany on the 19th when
> I am back in Europe. Please refund my money and I will close the case with
> paypal.
>
> Michael Farmer
>
>
>
> Below is the original ad saying these had AML documentation. I received a
> newly printed fake AML label. If you print it, it is NOT am AML label and to
> say it is a document is a clear fraud!.
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> ____________________________________________________________________________
> ___________________________________________Dear Collectors,
>
> today we want to accelerate especially the heartbeat of the lovers of
> documented historic specimens,
> in setting up for sale two of such, which would be without doubt also very
> remarkable,
> if they wouldn't be accompanied by their passports of provenience, the
> labels of the
> American Meteorite Laboratory.
>
> The American Meteorite Laboratory (AML) was founded in 1960 in Westminster,
> Colorado by H.H.Nininger's daughter Margaret
> and her husband Glenn Huss, to reestablish and continue the work of her
> father with his American Meteorite Museum,
> which he had finally to shut down for financial reasons in 1953.
> The AML had such an outreach in the institutional and private meteorite
> scene, that it served even as an eponym for the meteorite dealers of the
> following generation, like e.g. the Suisse Meteorite Laboratory and the
> Bavarian Meteorite Laboratory.
>
> Instead of giving you here the hundredth instant-biography of Nininger or
> Huss, we rather like to honor:
> The women! Who so undeservedly are standing small and faint behind the
> gloriole of their husbands,
> who never would have achieved that, they are celebrated for, if there hadn't
> been the support by the passion, the patience, the knowledge and the special
> abilities of their wives.(see also post scriptum).
>
> Therefore you get here for reading the obit for Margaret Huss, who died in
> 2007:
> http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_5878113
>
>
> Now to the exhibits:
>
> BONDOC.
>
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Bondoc_244_g_004.JPG
>
> Bondoc was one of the largest coups ever of the Niningers.
> The story of the adventurous recovery is told in one of Al Mitterling's
> "Nininger Moments":
> http://kuerzer.de/AlBondy
>
> Unfortunately the large slices cut from the huge main mass turned out to be
> everything else than stable
> and they crumbled and disintegrated to the harder iron nodules, manifold
> abundant in Bondoc, in larger silicate inclusions and crumbs of rust.
>
> The AML-Bondoc offered now is pretty massive and stable, looks like to be an
> endcut,
> and belongs to the iron-rich mesosideritic looking specimens, which seems to
> be scarcer than the preserved iron nodules and eucritic/silicate-inclusions.
>
> 244 gram it has!
>
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Bondoc_244_g_001.JPG
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Bondoc_244_g_002.JPG
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Bondoc_244_g_003.JPG
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Bondoc_244_g_004.JPG
>
> As you can see, in the last decades it had developed here and there some
> rust on the cut face.
> According to your wishes, we can re-polish it.
> (We have let it now as it is, because we know that most pedigree-collectors
> like their specimens to be as original as possible, also to keep the
> accordance of the specimen's weight with the given weight on the label).
>
>
> The second AMLer is a truly wonderful
>
> ESTHERVILLE
>
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Estherville_111_g_005.JPG
>
> We guess, that Estherville doesn't need any introduction anymore here on the
> list,
> as it is the third largest observed fall of the U.S.
>
> Nevertheless it seems pretty difficult to find nowadays still entire
> individuals, better than the also hard to get popular nuggets.
> Here to your delight we have now a perfectly intact individual, which by all
> means would be also without the old label a premium collection-piece for
> your cabinet.
> Note that it has not only the thinner rougher fusion crust, but also the fat
> and bulgy one with bubbles from outgassing where the silicate constituents
> had been molten.
>
> 111 grams it has
> (and Nininger/Huss/AMM/AML-fans know, that Esthervilles with AML-Labels are
> so much rarer than the Bondocs).
>
> Enjoy!
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Estherville_111_g_001.JPG
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Estherville_111_g_002.JPG
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Estherville_111_g_003.JPG
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Estherville_111_g_004.JPGhttp://www.meteori
> tenhaus.de/img/Estherville_111_g_005.JPG
>
>
> Prices:
> Bondoc 244g $1350
> Estherville 111g $1387
>
> Both together: $2580
>
>
> And for your patience, to have read the advertizing until that point, a
> third goodie:
>
> MURCHISON AT BELOW 100$/g
>
> All said about Murchison.
> The recent 5 years it got so sought after, that the standard price, even
> for
> larger stones, has established at 150$/g
> (and even 200-250$/g for minor amounts here and there and on ebay). Below
> you won't get any anymore.
>
> Here now a fragment, naked without crust and grinded on one side,
> At $800 with a weight of 8.13grams - which is 98.4$/g.
>
> The label on the back is looking familiar, but we didn't get it, from whom
> it could be.
> Maybe you can identify it? The font is outdated today, print looks like to
> stem from the time, when the printers still had needles.
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Murchison_8_13_g_004.JPG
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Murchison_8_13_g_001.JPG
> http://www.meteoritenhaus.de/img/Murchison_8_13_g_003.JPG
>
>
>
> Now time to let the games begin!
>
> The Meteorite House
> Hamburg - Munich
> A.Gren
> M.Kurschat
> M.Altmann
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Received on Sat 01 Jun 2013 12:39:47 AM PDT