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

From: Michael Farmer <mike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2013 06:38:22 -0700
Message-ID: <A81CBE1F-CD3C-4ADB-83F1-0B8316A8E7DF_at_meteoriteguy.com>

Martin,
Do you feel a plastic label printed on your home computer qualifies as an "American Meteorite Laboratory" passport as you write in your email?
I can print such things in seconds, as can anyone. So by using your "usually" very high standards, I can print ?500 notes on my computer, as long as I put the name of the European bank reserve on the fake, it would make it a real ?500 note? I think I'll try to pass a few around at dealers tables in Ensisheim and see how many rocks I can buy.
Sorry but this collector is calling your "passport" a fake travel document.

You sold this Estherville to me as an extremely rare well documented piece, you clearly state that it is with AML labels, but there is no AML label, just a plastic modern-made card. You know it is NOT am AML label, and selling it as such is a scam. Since there is not label, no number on the stone, absolutely nothing to show provenance, clearly the entire email you spent hours writing was a sales gimmick. You know I am a knowledgeable and serious collector, so why you would pass off this manufactured piece to me I don't know. Surely knowing my temper as you right here, you would know what the response would be? The only reason I bought it is because you stated it was AML with label. I figured that if it has an AML label then I was safe. I did not consider that I would receive a plastic card in substitute for AML documentation. I don't know who did it, or what "Romanian" collection it came from, I can't understand how you passed that off as acceptable.

Where is my refund? I will be happy when my money is back in my account.

Why you are defending these fake pieces with a story about a mislabeled meteorite I sold years ago I am not sure. The piece was cut and yes, it was in the wrong box or bag or whatever.
Mistake yes, fraud of making and selling fake old labels and provenance, no. I have made at least one mistake mixing up a piece, but you know what, thankfully a collector caught it, I OK'd him to cut and see and once cut we recognized the error and removed the piece. The way things should go.

I wrote to the list because you wrote ke a very nasty private email telling me how many decades you have been selling and how you could just resell the piece angered me. You know they are fake, now the whole list knows, you can compare your "murchison" to real murchisons and see there is no comparison. I don't want them resold onto perhaps other less knowledgable collectors.

Something really really is fishy is going on here.

By the way, you sold me and others these pieces in this forum, so why not clear it up in this forum?
I also do not want to see these things sold and resold for years to come.

What about the obvious fake Murchison? You don't even answer as to why you are selling such a piece.

I am really concerned at how this has come to pass.

Michael Farmer


Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 1, 2013, at 5:05 AM, "Martin Altmann" <altmann at meteorite-martin.de> wrote:

> 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
>
>
>
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Received on Sat 01 Jun 2013 09:38:22 AM PDT