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

From: Michael Farmer <mike_at_meteoritecentral.com>
Date: Fri, 31 May 2013 19:52:27 -0700 (PDT)
Message-ID: <1370055147.91677.YahooMailNeo_at_web5802.biz.mail.ne1.yahoo.com>

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.meteoritenhaus.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?????????????
Received on Fri 31 May 2013 10:52:27 PM PDT