Tuesday 25 December 2012

[brmeteorites_list] List 131 - more small stuff

[brmeteorites_list] List 131 - more small stuff

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………………………LIST 131

December 19, 2012

Dear Collectors,

I am sorry that this is going out late. I discovered yesterday morning that my one remaining Guinea pig (CQ) is ill and required an emergency trip to the vet (which is a bit over an hour drive each way for the vet that is up to date on Guinea pig care). We did not get back from this appointment until a bit after 4PM yesterday - too late to send this out. We have had CQ for a bit over 7½ years now (she is close to 8 as she was 5 months or so old when we got her). Unfortunately, the doctor's news clearly says we will not have her for much longer. She had cancer a couple years ago and did great after surgery. Unfortunately it has returned with a vengeance and is inoperable this time. So, making her comfortable (pain medication, lots of treats and attention) is all we can do for her at this point. (I have put some photos of her in the group photos section for anyone that wants to see what this old girl looks like).

I still hope to do an "end of year get it out of inventory" offering. However, I have not had much time to do the work to find what I want to go away (for simplifying bookwork purposes anyway). I have been buried with what has turned out to be a far bigger project than I had anticipated. I got all the general components to set up a solar hot water heating system (mostly for the water heater for nice "free" hot showers but also for actually heating the house if there is left over heat from that primary job). This is a really BIG project to put together it turns out. It has it all; plumbing, mechanical, and electric. For added excitement, much of the work has to be done in small closets, under the house in crawl spaces and on the roof. I had been really putting myself into this hoping to get the bulk of the work done while we had nice weather. I am maybe 2/3 done with this. However, we have bad weather rapidly moving in which might put an end to this project (the out doors and semi-outdoors parts anyway) for awhile (it is snowing heavily at this moment so I probably won't be taking packages to the post office today either). Then I may get to my inventory work and see if I can make a list out of it.

Anyway, here is another little selection from the old research collection that the last list came out of.

ATARRA, India: (L4), black. Fell December 23, 1920. Tkw = 1280 grams.
Now I know there cannot be much of this out. Only three stones were recovered with a total of a bit over a kilo known. This is certainly the first time I have seen a piece (al be it small) of this fall.
.065 grams fragments in capsule - $60

AZTEC, New Mexico: (L6). Fell February 1, 1938. Tkw = 2.83kg.
I know that there is very little of this one out there. I went through the brutal process of doing a trade with the Field Museum many years ago to get a small bit of this for a collector who lives in the area of the fall. This is the first time I have seen any of this since.
.05 gram fragment – 5mm x 5mm x 1.5mm - $30
.065 grams of fragments in capsule - $35

BATH, South Dakota: (H4), breccia. Fell August 29, 1892. Tkw = 21kg.
I know I had a piece of Bath Furnace in my micro collection years ago but don't think I had any of this one.
.025g fragment – 2.5mm x 2mm x 2mm - $10

ELENOVKA, Ukraine: (L5). Fell October 17, 1951. Tkw = 54.64kg.
These (I have a couple of them) are powder, crumbs and fragments in a capsule. The fragments portion are generally sized from 1mm up to 5mm in size.
.5 grams of fragments, crumbs, powder in capsule - $20

KELLY, Colorado: (LL4), breccia. Found 1937. Tkw = 44.3kg.
Kelly was my first LL4 I ever had and sold. It was also VERY popular as pretty much no collectors had an LL4 at that point (they are quite a bit rarer than LL3s). I seem to recall that back then (certainly over 20 years and likely closer to 24 years ago) the stuff brought the princely sum of around $20/g.
1.9 gram thick slice – 12mm x 9mm x 10mm - $60

KUTTIPPURAM, India: (L6). Fell April 6, 1914. Tkw = 45.4kg.
A shower of stones fell over 4 villages. The largest piece was around 71 pounds. Not a lot of this has gotten out as there are around 38kg of this fall reported held in Calcutta (meaning only around 7kg for the rest of us, museums included).
.025 grams, 3 fragments in capsule - $10
.04 gram fragment – 4mm x 3mm x 2mm - $15

KYUSHU, Japan: (L6) veined. Fell October 26, 1886. Tkw = 45+kg.
I have had piece of this in the past but it has been awhile. Not many meteorites from Japan are available to collectors (small target, a lot relatively difficult hunting terrain and such).
.015 grams, 2 fragments in capsule - $10
.03 gram fragment – 4mm x 2mm x 2mm - $15

SEARSMONT, Maine: (H5). Fell May 21, 1871. Tkw = about 900grams.
It was reported that a 12 pound (around 5.5kg) stone fell but only about 2 pounds was preserved. I have had a piece of this in the long ago past. I think this is the only meteorite from Maine I have ever had.
.06 grams fragments and dust in capsule - $20

WESTON, Connecticut: (H4). Fell December 14, 1807. Tkw = 149.7kg.
Apparently, this was a much larger fall than I had thought. However, it is noted that "very little was preserved". According to the Catalog of Meteorites, there is a bit under 4.3kg of this meteorite reported in major museum collections. I know that this has been one of the really high dollar historic rarities I've seen occasionally lately. But I guess though this is indeed important as it is the US's first witnessed fall.
.035 grams fragments in capsule - $15
.18 gram fragment – 6mm x 4mm x 4mm - $60

WOOLGORONG, Australia: (L6). Fell December 20, 1960. Tkw = 36.3 kg.
This, like Millbillillie, was recovered some time after the fall. In the case of this stone, it was not until July of 1961 that 80 pounds of fragemnts were recovered.
Dust in capsule - $5
About .01g (about 2mm square) of fragments in capsule - $10

ZAVID, Bosnia-Herzegovina: (L6) breccia. Fell August 1, 1897. Tkw = 92.78kg.
The fireball from this fall traveled from the SE to the NW. Four stones were recovered. It is likely that more pieces fell in to the river Drina.
.045 gram fragment – 4mm x 3mm x 2mm - $10

Tuesday 4 December 2012

Blaine Reed Meteorites - List 130 - small rare bits 1

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………………………LIST 130

December 4, 2012

Dear Collectors,

Here is a small assortment of some interesting things I received recently from an old research collection. There are many things in this collection that I have not cataloged fully yet. Regardless, I am already seeing a bunch of names of things (all really small, good for the micro collectors) that I have never seen or had before. The next couple offerings will likely be things pulled from this collection lot as I catalog them (though I may run an "inventory clearance" offering next time. I am currently working on that grueling task. I have not come across a lot of last one or two pieces of an item things yet – the things I'd probably want to get rid of so I don't have to do all the inventory work on them for taxes – but that may change).

ABEE, Canada: (EH4) impact melt breccia. Fell June 9, 1952. Tkw = 107kg.
This is a nice cut fragment that has a nice 12mm x 7mm patch of fusion crust. This had a thin coating of light rust on it so I hand sanded it to show fresh metal and breccia texture on its cut faces (and stunk up the kitchen in the process. One of the interesting features of most enstatite chondrites is that they stink of sulfur really bad when sanded).
1.95 gram cut fragment – 20mm x 7mm x 7mm - $120

ALLENDE, Mexico: (CV3.2). Fell February 8, 1969.
This is a "black inclusion" that was originally set aside to be thin-sectioned (and it may very well have had a layer cut off for this purpose). This, texturally, looks very much like a CM2 meteorite but the color is a bit lighter. I left this in the bottle I got it in which has a label that says " Allende black inclusion, a piece for thin section 1/24/74, 1.122g.
1.12 gram slice – 10mm x 8mm x 4mm - $15

AOUELLOUL GLASS, Mauritania.
A 250 meter diameter crater was discovered with a small amount of highly silicious glass around it. This glass contains iron and nickel, showing its impact origin. It is estimated that the impact occurred about 3.3 million years ago. These are 3 small pieces that have been sawn for research work and are in the plastic tube I received them in.
1.3 grams 3 pieces - $7

ARRIBA, Colorado: (L5), brecciated. Found 1936. Tkw = 31.1kg.
These piece are both "raw cut" unsanded. I left them as I got them. However, the back side of both is really nice in that they have very nice obvious weathered fusion crust (not badly weathered either. The crust is a nice mix of dark gray and chocolate brown). These are really nice little end pieces and likely very rare as such.
2.2 gram end piece – 18mm x 9mm x 6mm - $20

NEW CONCORD, Ohio: (L6) veined. Fell May 1, 1860. Tkw = 226.8kg.
Here is a US historic classic. I have not had any of this in quite awhile. I remember something about a rumor that a horse was supposedly killed in the fall of this meteorite but don't recall where I heard that.
2.3 gram slice – 17mm x 9mm x 4mm - $45
3.4 gram slice – 22mm x 9mm x 5mm - $65
5.0 gram slice – 40mm x 9mm x 4mm - $95

ORGUIEL, France: (CI1). Fell May 14, 1864. Tkw = 10.5+kg.
I sold a fair amount of this material when I offered it on a list recently. This piece is special in that it is still in the little plastic disk container that a researcher received decades ago (likely directly from the Paris Museum). I have priced this pretty much at the same price per gram (possibly even a hair less) that I had my "regular" material listed at.
.37grams of crumbs in Paris museum container - $700

PANTAR, Philippines: (H5). Fell June 16, 1938. Tkw = 10.3kg (?)
I put a question mark on the total known. This 10.3kg is what Meteorites A to Z reports but I could only come up with about 1600 grams in museum collections (according to the Catalog of Meteorites). Even the Meteoritical Bulletin has the total on this as 2.1kg. It was reported that 16 fairly small stones were recovered from this fall. However, a note was made that "thousands the size of corn and rice grains fell on roofs in the area". Perhaps a big load of these were recently recovered, but I certainly have not ever seen any of this fall available before.
.02 grams fragments/ crumbs in capsule - $15
.03 grams fragments in a capsule - $25
.11g fragment – 7mm x 5mm x 2mm - $80

WALTERS, Oklahoma: (L6). Fell July 28, 1946. Tkw = 28kg.
This is a meteorite that looks like there are only a couple kilos that has made it out of research collections, according to the numbers in the Catalog of Meteorites. These aren't much, but maybe all that is available of this fall at this point in time.
.20 gram fragments in capsule - $20
.7 gram cut fragment – 15mm x 5mm x 3mm - $50