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

From: Jason Utas <meteoritekid_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2013 04:54:43 -0700
Message-ID: <CABEOBj+txNOAJaEn5niQWQoMDgP8L5uiZ3SbZoOCwsXGuyOJTw_at_mail.gmail.com>

Hm. I said as much when I saw the Bondoc label on facebook some days
ago. My comment describing the issue with the label has since been
removed by Martin.

The labels are computer-printed (notice the bottom of every "g"
missing on the Bondoc label) and the font and underlining is wrong for
AML labels. The pictured labels even use the typical European " , "
instead of a " . " when describing the weights of the specimens [
xxx,x grams ]. And then there's the glossy paper...

Painfully obvious fakes, probably made in Europe given the punctuation.

I wonder where they came from...and why my observations were not only
ignored, but erased.

Jason



www.fallsandfinds.com


On Fri, May 31, 2013 at 9:39 PM, Michael Farmer <mike at meteoriteguy.com> wrote:
> 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
>> ______________________________________________
>>
>> Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com
>> Meteorite-list mailing list
>> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
>>
>>
>> ______________________________________________
>>
>> Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com
>> Meteorite-list mailing list
>> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
> ______________________________________________
>
> Visit the Archives at http://www.meteorite-list-archives.com
> Meteorite-list mailing list
> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
Received on Sat 01 Jun 2013 07:54:43 AM PDT