P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
……………………………………………..LIST 91
July 6, 2010

Dear Collectors,

Here is a single (but special) item offering. I hope to be doing more offerings before long (still waiting on more miscellaneous small things from the Florida collection), but their timing my be a bit off of proper, thanks to my busy schedule this month. I will be gone for a couple days this weekend to visit the Durango mineral show (probably Saturday and Sunday). I will be gone again the following weekend, though that will be a bit longer (probably Friday through Tuesday: 16th through the 20th, I believe). Then I have a show that I actually set up for (Creede) at the end of the month (I will have more details on that in a future posting, but the dates for the show are July 30th through August 1st in case anybody out there wants to start making plans to visit this neat show).

NWA (5484). Achondrite (Diogenite). Found 2008. Tkw = 328 grams.
When Matt sent me pictures of this stone (it was quite richly priced for "just a diogenite" raw out of the field, so he wanted an outside opinion), I almost fell over (and started screaming "buy it, buy it, buy it!). This thing looks just like the super famous Alan Hills 84001 (the one that stirred up the life on Mars excitement - something that seems to be rekindling, according to a short article in a recent Popular Science magazine). I have personally seen and held a couple pieces of that stuff, so my alarms went off the second I saw this thing. The same happened with the researchers that started working on this stone. They really thought that it might be another piece of the super special Martian "Diogenite". This really does a good imitation. It has an identical crystal structure, black spots scattered about (chromite, I believe) and even shows a few thin shock veins. Unfortunately, the oxygen isotopes point to a Vesta origin for this thing (and I would guess that they may have double checked those results a couple times to be sure). Most of this material has already found homes. Matt is keeping a full slice (maybe 12 or 13grams) for himself and the main mass is already in a private collection. I have all that is available to collectors. Unfortunately, this consists of a mere 41.7 grams total (and I only have 2 complete slices, so those of you that specialize in complete slices of odd and rare meteorites, please contact me quickly). I don't believe that any Alan Hills 84001 has ever made it into a private collection, but, though a bit expensive for "just a Diogenite", we can at least own and show off a piece of this fantastic look-a-like.

1) Slices:
a) .63 grams - 10mm x 10mm x 2mm - $50
b) 1.04 grams - 14mm x 13mm x 2mm - $80
c) 1.81 grams - 22mm x 13mm x 2mm - $135
d) 3.07 grams - 22mm x 21mm x 2mm - $225
e) 5.59 grams - 36mm x 25mm x 2mm - $400
f) 9.33 grams - 42mm x 32mm x 2mm - $650 - complete slice
g) 12.32 grams - 50mm x 35mm x 2mm - $850 - complete slice

2) Crumbs/ small slices in capsule:
a) .17 grams mostly crumbs (up to a couple mm in size) - $15
b) .45 grams: 6 pieces around 3mm to 5mm in size) - $35