Tuesday 17 December 2013

Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale- List 146, last of 2013

Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale- List 146, last of 2013

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………………………LIST 146

December 17, 2013

Dear Collectors,

This is going out the right day but a bit later than I would have liked. I was out of town for 5 days and I just got back last night. Of coarse, there were great piles of mail, phone messages, etc. waiting for me (I seem to get more “business” when I am not home. Maybe I should try to be gone more often). Anyway, I got caught up on the really important stuff and finally got around to typing this up well after 1PM. This will most certainly be my last list of 2013.

WHITECOURT, Canada: Iron. Medium octahedrite (IIIAB). Found July 1, 2009.
Here is one of the tiny handful of known meteorites that have an associated impact crater. The crater is about 40meters (about 130 feet) in diameter. Many meteorite fragments have been found since its discovery. Unfortunately, not all that many pieces have made it into collector’s hands. Most of the area where meteorites have been found has long since been protected as off limits for hunting meteorites. A further burden lies in getting the proper export permits for the material. Regardless, these three pieces were found by a customer of mine AND legally exported. The two larger pieces even have their exact find coordinates with them. These all have the full legal export permits. However, the two largest specimens here were exported under one certificate so I made a copy of this certificate (front and back) to put with the smaller specimen (the larger comes with the original as does the smallest piece listed here). Anyway, these are all natural as found fragments that have a very obvious shrapnel shape to them. I think these may be the first pieces of this meteorite I have offered.
a) 40.5 gram individual – 35mm x 26mm x 15mm - $300 – has original export permit papers.
b) 49.7 gram individual – 36mm x 28mm x 15mm - $350 – has photo copy of export permit.
c) 67.6 gram individual – 55mm x 30mm x 15mm - $490 – has original export permit papers.

CAT MOUNTAIN, Arizona: (L5), impact melt breccia. Found 1980. Tkw = 2.7 kilograms.
I remember the excitement and confusion this thing created when it came out. Robert Haag had bought this thing from a guy
that found it while hiking on A-mountain in Tucson. The thing certainly didn’t look like a meteorite. It looked like slag,
complete with some gas bubbles (a big part of what the “confusion” was over. How could a meteorite look like this?). Cutting
and research did indeed show that this was a meteorite. I think it was the very first of its kind reported (these things are still quite rare but a number o them have come out of NWA). The stuff was so weird and exciting it rapidly sold at hundreds of
dollars per gram! Anyway, I did not get any myself and this piece may be the first I have offered (certainly the only large piece anyway). This is a nice ¼ slice (two cut edges, the remainder being the natural fusion crust/ natural edge). This piece also has nice internal structure as well. There are areas that look like highly shocked L5 but there is a large “vein” of melt flow (about
40% of the surface) splitting this “matrix” material. Neat piece. The provenance on this (so you can be sure it is NOT an NWA
being passed on as a more desirable specimen) is I got it from Matt Morgan who got it from the collector that bought it directly from Robert Haag years ago. There were no certificate/ cards with this but the writing on the bag sure looks like Robert’s hand writing to me.
13.3 gram ¼ slice – 40mm x 40mm x 2mm - $1000

CLAXTON, Georgia: (L6). Fell December 10, 1984. Tkw = 1455 grams.
This is the famous one that took out a mail box in its fall. I owned that for around 5 years before selling it off and buying a piece of land with the proceeds. Anyway, I have not had a piece of the meteorite in a long time. Matt had this small piece set out and I asked if I could offer it on a list. Obviously the answer was “yes”. This not an extremely exciting piece. Just a nice fresh triangular shaped slice in a membrane box. However, what little of this was released to collectors years ago has long since found homes and it is a rare day that one has the chance to buy any piece of this one.
.635 gram slice – 16mm x 8mm x 2mm - $300

CUMBERLAND FALLS, Kentucky: (Aubrite). Fell April9, 1919. Tkw = 14.1 kilograms.
Here are a couple really nice little micros (?) These are probably better termed as “macros”, small but still show a good representative texture (breccia in this case). These are the kinds of pieces I would have in my “micro” collection (in fact I may indeed have a similar piece of this meteorite hiding there right now). Not cheap, but very nice and rarely offered.
a) .83 gram slice – 15mm x 12mm x 2mm - $200
b) 1.13 gram slice – 14mm x 14mm x 2mm - $280

D’ORBIGNY, Argentina: (Angrite). Found 1979. Tkw = 16.55 kilograms.
I think this one was even worse than Cat Mountain for creating a stir in the collecting community. The first time I ever saw it ( a large piece that ASU had for a potential trade) I could not believe that it could possibly be a meteorite. It had a weird elongate crystal texture. Different but not that different. However, this thing had holes in it, sometimes very large holes. AND these holes sometimes had weird long brown crystals growing in them. Absolutely astounding. I it weren’t for the presence of at least some fusion crusty, and a lot of detailed scientific work, this thing would likely never have been recognized as a meteorite. (HOWEVER – this does NOT mean that things that have a passing resemblance to this, or other meteorite types ARE meteorites.). These are nice, thin small slices. These pieces (except the very smallest) have some open areas/ vesicles, though most of these are very irregular in shape. The largest piece though does have a 3mm “crater” that is really a portion of one of the large round vesicles found in this meteorite.
a) .57 gram slice – 10mm x 10mm x 2mm - $150
b) 1.00 gram slice – 13mm x 12mm x 2mm - $260
c) 1.56 gram slice – 20mm x 13mm x 2mm - $405
d) 1.90 gram slice – 20mm x 16mm x 2mm - $495

Wednesday 4 December 2013

Blaine Reed Meteorites - List 145, inventory clearance items

Blaine Reed Meteorites - List 145, inventory clearance items

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………………………LIST 145

December 4, 2013
Note: please be patient if you respond to this offering by e-mail. I seem to be having a lot of troubles with Yahoo mail today. Most all of my actions (opening an e-mail, deleting one, etc) seem to be endlessly ending up with a "connection timed out" error message. A half dozen or so tries, I can usually get the job done though (for now).

Dear Collectors,
This is, yet again, delayed a day from when it should have been sent out. We have some seriously bad weather passing through and I spent most of yesterday (and Monday) trying to prepare. A “roofer” who I hired to coat the roof to hold the shingles from blowing off in our strong winds, decided to take it upon himself to “fix” the shingles that were already partly broken and possibly flapping in the wind. Rather than sealing them down with tar underneath, he did this by simply nailing the things down completely through from above. What this did is give water a direct path through the roof along these nail holes – something I learned about when it rained/ snowed last week (and I got a big wet spot on the inside ceiling in my bedroom). I had been waiting for nice weather to get up on the roof and deal with this problem (patching/ coating these new holes/ nails). Unfortunately, we have not had any nice weather. I have had no sunshine for over 2 weeks now (our last really nice day was November 18th. I flew my plane that day and the ignition system, yet again, “let me down”. Time for a complete re-build on that part of this machine). I have shut down the solar hot water system for the house as there has been no heat generated lately and I need what little heat is still in the storage tank for keeping pipes of the system from freezing later this week. We are also expecting “the coldest temperatures in over 3 years” the next couple weeks. I had a couple weeks of 15 below weather last January so I am not sure I like hearing this bit of news. I had to spend the rest of the time I had Monday and Tuesday figuring out and implementing a way to put up insulation over my green house windows/ heat collection surfaces (again, no sun for over 2 weeks means no heat stored in the water barrels to speak of and sub-zero temperatures mean BIG problems with out insulation and an electric heat source). We have also been told that we may be getting over a foot of snow here as well (!!) We only average 18” in an entire year. This may mean that orders from this offering may be delayed in getting to the post office if the weather folks are remotely correct (my driveway is over 450 feet long and it takes around 7 hours to shovel it out, something that, thankfully, I have only had to do a couple times in 12 years now).

Anyway, these are things I have turned up while doing inventory work that I have only a piece or two left of. I have greatly reduced the price on these few stragglers from what they originally were. I’d rather sell them now than keep these “names” going on into inventory next year.

HYATTEVILLE, Wyoming: (L6). Found April 2008. Tkw = 8911 grams.
I never had a whole lot of this meteorite (the main mass – some 4kg plus – went to a collector in Canada) but now I am down to these two pieces. I think these were my largest pieces; an end piece/ cut fragment and the next slice that came off. This is a fairly fresh meteorite (weathering grade of 1). It shows quite a lot of fresh metal in a mixed light tan to medium brown spotted matrix. Nothing really special or rare by type, but very few meteorites from Wyoming are available to collectors. I sold most of this at around $4.50/ gram. I am pricing these substantially cheaper for a sale “as they are”. IF I end up breaking these down into smaller pieces (something I might do for Tucson if they don’t sell here) the resulting pieces will likely be priced back at that higher level.
a) 81.6 gram slice – 116mm x 70mm x 3mm - $225
b) 222.2 gram end piece/ cut fragment – 200mm x 75mm x 10mm - $550

KORRA KORRABES, Namibia: (H3). Found 1996, recognized 2000. Tkw = about 140 kilograms.
This is an end piece/ cut fragment that I had planned on cutting up into slices but didn’t for a couple reasons. One is I just plain didn’t take the time or effort to put it ion the “get done” pile. The other is that there is some controversy over whether or not this is truly Korra Korrabes or a new meteorite. There has been a rumor floating around that the fresher pieces like this (Korra Korrabes is usually really dark brown, this is a nice lighter brown, has good metal and clearly shows some breccia clasts) might be a “new” unrecognized meteorite. This may yet turn out to be the case (I think it is being worked on) but I am currently taking the view that this is most likely a piece of Korra Korrabes that simply was in an area that exposed it to less oxidation (as this potential “new” meteorite is also an H3). Anyway, I decided to offer this (the only piece that is mine – I have a couple that are consigned yet) as it is, a nice end piece, rather than cut it up into slices.
333.6 gram end piece/ cut fragment – 65mm x 50mm x 40mm - $330

NWA 2136 : (L3.5). Found before February 2004. Tkw = 1045 grams.
I had a bunch of slices of this but seem to have only these two pieces remaining. This is rather interesting looking stuff. It is somewhat porous and shows lots of gray chondrules in a light brown/ orange matrix (actually, the smaller piece has a lot of dark red/brown in its matrix, making the chondrules even more obvious).
a) 6.3 gram slice – 33mm x 32mm x 3mm - $20
b) 16.0 gram slice – 48mm x 38mm x 3mm - $50

NWA 5774: (LL5) polymict breccia. Found before October 2008. Tkw = 815 grams.
This is an interesting meteorite. It clearly shows clasts of various sizes and textures in slices (the smallest here is about ½ one texture and one half another totally different one). Research work showed that these clasts were fragments of LL material of different compositions so this meteorite was classified as a polymict breccia. This meteorite is quite fresh and shows fresh metal and various clasts (brown to dark gray) and chondrules in a light brown (almost orange) matrix. These three pieces are all I have remaining of this meteorite.
a) 3.8 grams – 28mm x 20mm x 3mm - $11
b) 8.3 gram slice – 33mm x 23mm x 4mm - $25
c) 10.5 gram slice – 35mm x 33mm x 3mm - $30

NWA 5782: Achondrite. Acapulcoite/ Lodranite. Found before September 2008. Tkw = 130 grams.
I had only two stones of this exciting, unique meteorite. This meteorite looked to be a breccia with impact melt looking veins. The thing turned out to be a unique breccia mix of fragments of both acapulcoite (45%), lodranite (25%) in a matrix (30%) composed of debris from both lithologies. This was described by the researchers working on it as “the Rosetta Stone of the acapulcoite-lodranite parent body”. I came close to selling out of this at around $400/g when I offered a couple years ago. I have only these 4 small/ thin slices (in membrane boxes) remaining.
a) .19 gram slice – 15mm x 3mm x 1mm - $47
b) .26 gram slice – 13mm x 7mm x 1mm - $65
c) .32 gram slice – 11mm x 6mm x 1.5mm - $70
d) .36 gram slice – 13mm x 10mm x 1mm - $85

MOAPA VALLEY, Nevada: Carbonaceous chondrite (CM1). Found September 2004. Tkw = 698.8 grams.
I think there are only two CM1 chondrites that have ever been available to collectors; this one and a mere 19gram NWA specimen. Don’t fear the “high” total known weight on this one. I know that the main mass is now safely part of a permanent collection (a brokered the deal) and very little of this truly rare stuff is floating around. So, if you have been waiting to add a piece of this “new” type carbonaceous chondrite to your collection, don’t wait to long, this is indeed my very last piece (and priced at about what it cost me).
.64 gram fragment – 11mm x 6mm x 5mm - $400

MUONIONALUSTA, Sweden: Fine octahedrite. Found 1906.
Here is a selection of 7 small etched slices ranging in size from 11 grams up to 26 grams. I have had these sitting aside for a couple years and kind of forgot about them (I had planned on using these to replace Gibeon for people that wanted an etched iron but then Seymchan came along). The sizes are: 11.7g, 16.3g, 17.1g, 17.2g, 20.2g, 21.3g, 26.7g for a total of 130grams. These do have a nice etch (generally better than Gibeon actually) and are in surprisingly nice condition. Despite the years (several) I have had them, the have only developed a few hints of rusting (and even then only on a couple of the pieces) – mostly a small rust line (as even Gibeon gets) or a back ground hint of brown staining (that may really be a residue from etching). I am offering these as a lot for below what they would cost from the sources today. However, I will sell these individually (at $1/g) if the lot does not sell intact after a couple days.
130gram lot of 7 etched slices - $100

SaU 504, Oman: (L5/6). Found March 12, 2010. Tkw = about 20 kilograms.
I had a pretty good amount of this at one time but now seem to have only these two pieces. It is not a rare or particularly interesting meteorite but it is cheap (I sold most of it at $.80 to $.90/g) and well prepared (all pieces had at least one side polished to a high diamond polish). These two pieces are just a basic small slice and an end piece that really displays nicely. I don’t have many Oman stones and likely will have very few in the future (the few people I knew who were getting them have long since moved on to other areas now that it has indeed been made clear that this fantastic hunting locality is now off limits).
a) 38.4 gram slice – 45mm x 45mm x 7mm - $20
b) 973.3 gram end piece – 140mm x 75mm x 55mm - $400