Tuesday, 21 June 2011

Blaine Reed Meteorites List #105 21JUN2011

Blaine Reed Meteorites List #105 21JUN2011

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
………………………………………………………LIST 105

June 21, 2011

Dear Collectors,

I am finally getting caught up after an endless series of trips and visitors so I am finally getting a chance to put an offering together (a bit late I admit, but the last visitor was here until late this morning). 

This is yet another offering of picked up in Tucson or consigned stuff (mostly consigned stuff actually). 

I do have yet more traveling planned for fairly soon (I will be gone the weekend of July 4th and yet again July 7th through about July 12th), but these should not greatly affect taking and shipping orders from this list. 

HENBURY, Australia: Medium octahedrite (IIIAB). Found 1931.
This is a nice little end piece. The cut and etched face is roughly 25mm x 15mm or so. The remainder is wire brushed and has a nice thumb-printed shape. A nice display piece!
64.5 gram end piece – 30mm x 18mm x 25mm - $100

SIKHOTE-ALIN, Russia: Coarsest octahedrite (IIAB). Fell February 12, 1947.
This is a really nice shaped small shrapnel fragment. It has a fantastic torn shape and a pleasing dark brown color (this was only lightly brushed). This stuff, believe it or not, is getting very hard to come by. There was VERY little available at the Denver spring show and it was priced at or slightly higher than this superior specimen.
9.9 gram lightly brushed shrapnel fragment – 30mm x 15mm x 12mm - $9

NWA 906: (H3.8). Found June 2001. Tkw = 1031 grams.
This is a nice end piece with one edge cut off (kind of a "book end" cut). This has quite a lot of metal in a medium brown matrix, so it is not highly weathered.
4.7 gram cut end piece – 25mm x 16mm x 6mm - $30

NWA 925: (H3.8). Found June 2001. Tkw = 897 grams.
This is distinctly different than the sample above. This is a bit fresher, has a lighter color and a bit of porous texture to it.
4.5 gram slice – 24mm x 20mm x 2mm - $30

PLAINVIEW (a), Texas: (H5) breccia. Found 1917. Tkw = 700+ kilograms.
A 25 pound piece of this meteorite fell into a horse corral in early spring 1903, so this meteorite should probably be called a fall rather than a find (I have had slices of the horse corral specimen and they do indeed match other Plainview slices). This is a nice part slice that has ½ of its edge crusted and the remainder divided between a natural break and a sawn edge.
15.6 gram part slice – 36mm x 26mm x 5mm - $55 

ALLENDE, Mexico: carbonaceous chindrite (CV3.2). Fell February 8, 1969.
This is a nice slice that has one edge of crust (remaining edges are breaks or very late stage crust). I am nearly out of this stuff in my inventory so I was glad to get a piece or two in this consignment lot.
4.4 gram slice – 25mm x 23mm x 3mm - $35 

NWA 2663: Carbonaceous chondrite. (CO3.1). Found 2004. Tkw = 580grams.
This is a nice macro specimen in a plastic display box, showing lots of tiny chondrules in a medium to dark brown matrix.
2.0 gram slice – 15mm x 13mm x 3mm - $30

ZAGAMI, Nigeria: Martian (Shergottite). Fell October 3, 1962. Tkw = 18.1 kilograms.
This is a small fragment with a roughly 5mm x 4mm cut face. This does not have any fusion crust that I can see, but it does have a good number of thin black shock lines running through it.
.178 gram fragment with cut face – 6mm x 5mm x 4mm - $160

ESQUEL, Argentina: (Pallasite). Found 1951.
This is a particularly aesthetic little piece. It has a nice arrangement of large gemmy crystals, a couple of which nicely transmit light (and the remainder are interesting in that they act like windows to looking down inside the slice). The edge is nearly ½ natural as well! The only problem I can see (and this is only for some people) is that it is a wedged sample and not uniform thickness (but this is what allows for the diversity of crystal appearances though).
8.1 gram slice – 31mm x 20mm x 4mm - $250

IMILAC, Chile: (Pallasite). Found 1822.
This is a really nice "weathered" fragment – the ones that have the wild shape and sandy olivine crystals that range from yellow to pink in color. I personally feel that these are more likely impact shrapnel fragments, as the bulk of them were found surrounding an impact crater. Regardless, this is a particularly nice example.
13.1 gram fragment – 25mm x 16mm x 12mm - $95

SEYMCHAN, Russia: (pallasite). Found 1967. 
This is a nice rectangular slice with fairly dark but yet gemmy olivines. I sold this piece to the owner a few years ago and have not been able to come up with as nice of material for replacement (I am nearly out of truly pallasitic pieces of this meteorite).
5.9 gram slice – 26mm x 17mm x 3mm - $90 

THIN - SECTIONS:
Unfortunately, I have only these two specimens. The dimensions are the area of actual meteorite material on the slide.

Allende, Mexico: (CV3.2) – 23mm x 18mm - $50

Waltman, Wyoming: (L4) – 22mm x 16mm - $50