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

From: Michael Farmer <mike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Sat, 1 Jun 2013 06:58:39 -0700
Message-ID: <3E4810DA-690B-4758-B12C-942AB25ED0E6_at_meteoriteguy.com>

I agree, and I have 50 kilograms of Bondoc, directly exchanged out of the ASU meteorite vault. I do not believe that is a meteorite as well. I also think slag as a first guess, same as my "Estherville". I would gladly cut and have tested if I wasn't out $1300. I want my money back.

Michael Farmer
 

Sent from my iPhone

On Jun 1, 2013, at 5:23 AM, Jason Utas <meteoritekid at gmail.com> wrote:

> "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."
>
> Yes, but the rear (and cut face of it) look like slag compared to
> other Bondocs on the market.
>
> http://www.ebay.com/sch/i.html?_trksid=p2047675.m570.l1313.TR0.TRC0&_nkw=bondoc+meteorite&_sacat=0&_from=R40
>
> There are a variety of textures, but none so porous, and the knobbly
> back and metal distribution look rather like slag. Such observations
> are not conclusive, but...meh.
>
> I'd return or ditch the material.
>
> Regards,
> Jason
>
> www.fallsandfinds.com
>
>
> On Sat, 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 09:58:39 AM PDT