Tuesday 18 March 2014

Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale - List 150 - yet more after Tucson stuff

Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale - List 150 - yet more after Tucson stuff

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………………………LIST 150
March 18, 2014

Dear Collectors,

Here is yet another “after Tucson” list.

CHINGA, Russia: Ni-rich ataxite. (IVB) anomalous. Found 1913. Tkw = 80+ kilograms.
This is a nice solid (no rust scaling) end piece I picked up as part of a small collection during the show. The cut face is simply polished, not etched (this doesn’t show much when etched anyway). A nice piece for display.
196.2 gram end piece – 55mm x 28mm x 40mm - $300

FRANCONIA, Arizona: (H5). Found October 31, 2002. Tkw = 100+ kilograms.
This meteorite is interesting in that small grains of native copper have been found in cut pieces. I have not had a lot of this material over the years even though quite a lot of it was found (not sure any more is turning up these days either). I think most who found pieces kept them. Anyway, I was able to trade for a few nice complete individuals at the show. These are all distinctly complete and are covered with fusion crust, though that crust is a thin secondary crust in some areas on most of these stones. Nice small pieces.
a) 16.3 gram individual – 28mm x 18mm x 16mm - $25
b) 32.8 gram individual – 30mm x 30mm x 19mm - $50
c) 47.8 gram individual – 37mm x 30mm x 20mm - $70

NWA (unstudied): Oriented individual.
Now here is a bit of a crime. This is a quite fresh chondrite (likely L5 or L6) that was very clearly perfectly oriented. Much of the crust is brown on the front side but it clearly shows a line where it changes to black that shows how this was sitting in the ground when it was found. The front shows nice flow lines and a number of elongated “flower petal” thumb-prints. The back side (which is mostly black with some minor dirt attached – this has not been cleaned at all) shows rough textured bubbly in spots crust. There is also a very distinct bubbly roll-over rim around the edge of this piece. The “crime” is that somebody chopped off one side of this specimen (kind of like Lafayette). This does allow you to see the white interior and how surprisingly thick the fusion crust is on this stone (around 1mm thick or so). The bigger “crime” though is that the piece that was cut off was not kept with this beauty. None the less, this is a classic example of an oriented meteorite.
265.8 gram oriented ½+ individual – 85mm x 50mm x 33mm - $400

NWA (2932): Stony-iron (Mesosiderite). Found 2005. Tkw = around 15 kilograms.
This is one I wish I had more of. This is what a mesosiderite should be. This is a slice that is quite fresh and shows lots of metal (some as large round nodules) and lots of silicates (including at least one large cm sized crystal that looks like olivine but is likely pyroxene). A superb specimen for someone looking for a truly representative mesosiderite piece for their collection.
115.6 gram complete slice – 88mm x 55mm x 7mm - $1100

NWA (6963); Martian (Shergottite). Found 2011. Tkw = 8 to 10 kilograms.
This is a part slice that looks surprisingly like the coarse-grained portions of Zagami. The edges though give this one away as a find. There is one tiny (2mm x 2mm perhaps) patch of black crust but the remainder of the natural edge (about half of the specimen’s edge as two sides appear to be cut) shows some minor adhering dirt. This meteorite, like Zagami, also has a lot of Maskelynite glass, some as shock veins, though this piece shows this mostly as the occasional darkened shocked pocket rather than veins. This piece is in a neat Steve Arnold prepared riker display box and is ready for display or passing around to interested friends or lecture attendants.
2.25 gram part slice is riker display – 20mm x 12mm x 4mm - $700

QUIJINGUE, Brazil: Stony-iron (Pallasite). Found 1984. Tkw = 59 kilograms.
This meteorite was found buried one meter deep by a farmer digging holes for planting trees. He later gave it to a miner who got it identified as a meteorite. I remember when this came out some years ago. I was worried (as I am with any new pallasites) about this being a “ruster” (and some people may have indeed had problems with this, I don’t know though). However, this piece was uncoated and came from Germany (quite humid) and it looked quite fine to me (only a couple tiny rust spots is all I found). I have coated it though just to be safe. I have two pieces that were from the same slice (I broke it as someone at the show needed a smaller piece and it was clear that it would be easy to snap the piece into several smaller specimens).
a) 5.4 gram part slice – 25mm x 20mm x 3mm - $80
b) 35.9 gram part slice – 63mm x 46mm x 3mm - $525

PHILIPPINITES: Rizal province, Philippines.
Here are a few “Rizalites” I recently picked up from Alan Lang (unfortunately, these did not come with any labels). The smallest and largest pieces here are flatish and have a slightly indented bottom but both show some nice fairly deep grooving on their top sides. The middle sized piece is more the classic large round specimen (as is typical from this area) but lacks grooving to speak of.
a) 47.6 gram individual – 40mm x 40mm x 20mm - $40
b) 111.8 gram individual – 45mm x 43mm x 37mm - $84
c) 121.6 gram individual – 63mm x 53mm x 25mm - $100