[meteorite-list] meteorites sold from Europe, not as described

From: Martin Altmann <altmann_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2013 14:05:47 +0200
Message-ID: <003001ce5ec0$8ebbfee0$ac33fca0$_at_de>

Hi Mike and all,


it?s really always sad, to experience, what internet did to some, regarding
communication, couth and manners.
As told yesterday to you, as you are obviously not content with the
specimen, we offered you to send in back and to refund you.
Your temper and your readiness to doom and damn each and everyone in public,
as soon as an opportunity shows up, is legendary on that list here,
as the archives tell manifold and that behavior caused so many new
collectors to turn their backs on to their new hobby, when they read your
endless flame wars here on the list, because they had imagined meteorite
collecting more august than to witness brawls on the fish-market.

Here you can observe a difference about Andi?s and my notion of the
meteorite scene, we never took advantage in trying to badmouth you, when you
sold e.g. a ?Bensour? of 85g to S.A. which landed with your label at M.V.,
who asked you again and you identified it without doubts as Bensour, but
after he cut it, it turned out to be H and rather a Bassikonou.

To the specimens.
They originally stem from an old private collection from Hungary. A
collection from pre-desert times.
As you might remember even from the times, when you were still peddling with
your little bag with your sales inventory from client to client,
in former times, the 1960s, 70s, 80s, 90s ? the idea of
?pedigree?-collecting wasn?t born yet, the fascination emanating from the
specimens ?themselves, the fact that they were meteorites, was for the
collectors overwhelming enough, so that they did not need the little
extra-boost of having a written note, from whom they had acquired them
(because they knew it anyway). Hence they were proud on the specimens as
they were now their specimens, so they wrote their own labels and threw
often the labels of the sellers/source away.
I don?t know how many specimens you acquired from private collections of
these times, but you will agree, that the majority of such specimens comes
without any label or they come with the label of the collector, and we at
least had dozens of cases, where the old original label was preserved, but
where the collector had cut off the part with the name of the dealer or the
museum.
Here with these two specimens of Estherville and Bondoc, it was a luck, that
the labels ? why the collector enlarged and laminated once them we don?t
know, maybe for his collection filing box ? gave the hint, where the
collector once had acquired them from.
They were Huss specimens. And Huss at that time wasn?t the glorified
successor of Nininger, he was nothing else than a dealer for his
contemporaries, just like today, a Hupe, a Haiderer or a Cottingham for us.

If you take Bondoc, the specimen numbers are absolutely consistent with all
the numbers of the Huss-Bondocs offered by Geoff Notkin, or at Arnaud in the
Tricottet Collection or on Murray?s fine new collection site or those Peter
Marmet showed us.
Btw. none of these is listed in the both Huss-catalogues, none of these got
a number painted on the surface by Huss.
(We would have expected you to know that, as U.S.-expert)

As told, we are convinced of the authenticity of the specimens, as well as
those esteemed list members, who had them already in their hands.
And as it is our policy, we offer always a return to our private buyers.
So thank you Anne, Jeff and Mike for your efforts, to keep the ?Market?
clean, but we don?t see yet any reason for hysteria.
(Aside from the likeliness, that we after 33 years of meteorite collecting
and 10+ years meteorite dealing, would have nothing better to do,
than to forge Esthervilles and Bondocs and to fake a legend, to sell them at
those cheapest prices we did).

However, and there you most probably will agree,
we see no sense in a written theoretical discussion here on the list, but
like it the sober way.
You?ll bring the Estherville to Ensisheim, we got so many requests for that
very specimen and there are so many experts,
who will identify it as that, what it is, that we won?t be in no way
reluctant or shy to show the specimen to each and everyone,
who wants.
Therefore we will adjourn the further theatre, if you don?t mind, until 3
weeks.


Martin & Andi
Received on Sat 01 Jun 2013 08:05:47 AM PDT