-- List #94

List 94, some "after Denver" stuff
Wednesday, September 29, 2010 8:14 AM
Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax: (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………..LIST 94
September 28, 2010

Dear Collectors,
Sorry this is going out so late. I have been very busy today (lots of calls, visitors and such). I have been working on this since 11AM this morning and wanted to be done by 1 or 2PM. Here it is after 5.

Most of these are things that were sent to me for the Denver show or things I picked up while there. I had a couple more boxes of things that were sent, but did not arrive in time to make it to the show with me as well (I still have not opened them). Those should make for the next offering or three. I am also desperately trying to get a mailed offering pulled together before too long (I usually would have the bulk of an after Denver paper listing ready to go and by now, but all of the difficulties health wise this summer left me waaay behind in cutting, polishing and cataloging stuff for such an offering). We have really nice weather now, so I am trying to get that caught up as well (but it will likely be a couple weeks before I have envelopes stuffed and sent).

ODESSA, Texas: Coarse octahedrite (IAB).
This is a sample I got in a bucket of mixed irons I picked up this summer from a mineral dealer in California (he got them as part of a large mineral collection he bought). This one looked like it was simply about to rust into two pieces (along an almost perfectly straight and flat surface that I originally assumed was simply along one of the internal etch structure boundaries). I had considered simply cutting the last little bit of this break and polishing and etching the resulting two pieces to make two end pieces. I am glad I didn't. On closer inspection, I realized that this "rusting crack" is really a troilite or Schiebersite inclusion that has mostly broken out of this specimen (some of this is still visible in the narrow end of the split). Very interesting and unusual, but I am pricing this at the same as a more common Odessa specimen of this size.
1270 gram brushed individual - 125mm x 70mm x 30mm - $900

TAZWELL, TN: Finest octahedrite (IIICD). Found 1853. Tkw=27.2kg
Tazwell is the only finest ocathedrite I have ever seen and this is only the second sample I have ever had of it. I had this hiding in a "do something with later" stuff and forgot about it for many years (it came too me from Tom Palmer's collection). Actually, the "do something" was to trim the slightly larger specimen down into two pieces; one for my type set micro collection (I had goofed and accidently left my last specimen in with "extra" specimens from that collection that I was willing to part with and, of coarse, it sold immediately) and this one to sell. It has been decades since I got my first piece (and a good 7 or 8 years since I got this one) and it may be as long before another specimen of this turns up again.
10.8 gram etched part slice (50% crusted edge) - 20mm x 11mm x 6mm - $300

NWA (6135), (LL3.8). Found 2008. Tkw = 3.8kg.
Matt Morgan got this stone a couple years ago and cut a few pieces off of it. I picked up this fantastic slice from him a earlier this summer (I had a customer that wanted LL3 pieces, but it turned out that he wanted larger, preferably complete pieces individuals). This is not an individual, so it didn't meet the needs, but it is a complete slice. It has a great LL3 interior (lots of chondrules) and a few interesting inclusions. One (the one that caught my eye and got me to take this piece) is a 20mm x 25mm obvious LL5 fragment!.
121.5 gram complete slice - 110mm x 65mm x 6mm - $1100

ASH CREEK, (a.k.a. "West") Texas: (L6). Fell February 15, 2009. Tkw = 11.7kg.
I remember that I was still visiting friends in Phoenix after the Tucson show when this fell. I was unloading my car back at home when the first recovered pieces started turning up. I really wanted to go and look for some of this one (it looked like enough pieces were being found that there was a real chance of not getting skunked on a hunt here - not so with the recent Wisconsin fall). Unfortunately, I had a good 3 weeks of work, bills, etc waiting to be immediately dealt with after being gone so long for the show. These are both beautiful complete, black crusted individuals (the smaller has some hint of dark brown coloration that could be very light oxide - it did rain quite a bit the days after this fell). .
a) 17.9 gram complete individual - 27mm x 20mm x 15mm - $985
b) 27.0 gram complete individual - 32mm x 25mm x 21mm - $1485

TUXTUAC, Mexico: (LL5). Fell October 16, 1975. Tkw = 29.25kg.
This is one of the usual crust free pieces. Much of this meteorite was broken apart by the locals that found it as they thought that there must gold or gems hiding inside it as the price offered for it was really high for just an "ugly rock", even if it did fall from space. Robert Haag had the bulk of this stuff years ago, but it is now fairly scarce stuff (and quite under priced for an LL fall in my opinion).
28.7 gram cut fragment - 48mm x 24mm x 20mm - $150

ALLENDE, Mexico: carbonaceous chondrite (CV3.2). Fell February 8, 1969.
This is beautiful super thin slice cut by wire saw. This is a particularly nice piece of Allende it has nice chondrules (not quite as many as the NWA 3118 below, but very nice for Allende) and has a nice 10mm x 1.5mm CAI. I had a bunch of pieces like this at the show and sold all of them rapidly (this one would have sold, but it was mistakenly mixed in with the NWA (3118) pieces that I had extras of so I did not know I had this).
32mm x 23mm thin slice in mylar box - $40

NWA (801), carbonaceous chondrite (CR2)
Here is a really nice LARGE (for this stuff) slice that I wouldn't mind keeping for myself (I am making working on a deal to get one for myself a bit later though). This is a complete slice that was cut with a wire saw, but not polished so it does show some horizontal cut marks. The owner of this did polish down a slice that they kept for their collection and decided that it was best to leave this unpolished (sanding tends to darken the material and you loose a fair amount of the chondrule structure and metal in this material). I did just discover though that he coated the back side with some kind of lacquer, and did a pretty poor job of it unfortunately (though it does really bring out the chondrules really well). This is in a riker mount box so this is the first I have seen the back side of this piece. It is too thin to risk trying to sand and re-coat so I am going to offer it as it is at a price a bit below what I had on it at the show.
35.0 gram complete slice - 135mm x 70mm x 1mm - $875

NWA (3118), carbonaceous chondrite (CV3). Found 2003. Tkw = 5895grams.
This, to me, looks the same as NWA (2086), which is on of my favorite meteorites (why oh why didn't I keep more of that 33kg lot I sold off back in 2003 and 2004?). This is loaded with chondrules. Some Allende looks like this stuff, but most is positively uninteresting compared to this material. These are more of the super thin cut wire-sawed samples I got on consignment just before leaving for the show. The small specimens are so thin that I am not going to risk trying to take them out of their mylar boxes to weigh them or try to guestimate their thickness.
a) 16mm x 11mm slice in mylar display box - $15
b) 20mm x 17mm slice in mylar box - $20
c) 28mm x 20mm slice in mylar box - $35
d) 3.0g - 65mm x 58mm slice in riker mount box - $75

LAFAYETTE, Indiana: (Nakhlite) Mars Rock. Found before 1930. Tkw = 800g.
This is the important mars rock that also was about the most perfect oriented meteorite. There is very little of this available (it was cut, but, thankfully, not completely cut up so it is still a pretty impressive display piece for showing classic orientation). This is "just" a small (about 2mm x 1mm) crumb (not many larger pieces of this are available, so most of us have to settle for a crumb if we are going to own any of this one). It comes in a neat Riker display that has a picture of the remaining oriented mass and a picture of Mars.
2mm x 1mm fragment in riker box display - $75