Blaine Reed Meteorites - List 127 - after Denver stuff

Blaine Reed Meteorites - List 127 - after Denver stuff


Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………………………LIST 127

October 2, 2012

Dear Collectors,

Here are a few things I got at the show a couple weeks ago. This is a bit rushed as I am also trying to pull together a mailed listing right now as well (as well as madly working on as much of a solar hot water system as I can possibly accomplish on my own while the weather is still nice). I did not pick up a whole lot of material at the show (that's what happens when you are stuck running a room I guess). The bits I got here are, on review of the list, typically on the more expensive side (not necessarily in price per gram, just over all cost). I usually try to have more material on the affordable side, but simply did not come up with much this time.

LAFAYETTE, Indiana: Nakhlite. Found before 1930. Tkw = 800 grams.
Here is a small crumb (about 1mm x 1.5mm) of this super famous and rare meteorite. This fantastically oriented meteorite was found in the Purdue University geological specimen collection. Less than 200 grams was cut from this beautiful stone for research and distribution to collections. As such, pieces of this are rare in private hands. This piece came from a specimen that came from the Jim Schwade collection. It is in a gem case mounted in a riker box that has a picture of the main mass and basic info (type, find date) inside. Nice little display. I have had these in the past and they have always sold rapidly.
Small (roughly 1mm x 1.5mm crumb in display box - $75

LANCE, France: Carbonaceous (CO3.5). Fell July 23, 1872. Tkw = 51.7 kilograms.
Here are a few fragments (one "large" one and a few small) in a capsule in a Paris Museum container (30mm diameter, 10mm thick plastic disk). I had a few other similar contained specimens, but sold them before Ann Black helped determine that they were Paris museum pieces. I am surprised that this one didn't sell at the show, but then it is not cheap and I had the display case absolutely packed with stuff (easy to get lost in the clutter). Anyway, this is my last such "Paris" piece.
.30 grams fragments in capsule in Paris museum container - $100

LOST CITY, Oklahoma: Fell January 3, 1970. Tkw = 17 kilograms.
These are small blocks of this super famous and important meteorite mounted in Riker boxes with a photograph of the fireball and information card. This was the first meteorite in the US to be recovered from photographs of the meteor trail. Three stations of the Prairie Network of sky cameras picked up the trail and allowed a calculation of the likely fall point. 6 days later, a search team discovered the first specimen, a 9.8 kilo mass, by nearly driving over it as it sat in a road. It took over 10 years of operation of this sky monitoring systems operation before this meteorite was recovered from those efforts. As such, this has been considered to be one of the "most expensive meteorites of all times" (not that it is much "cheaper" now).
a) .57 gram block – 8mm x 7mm x 3mm - $125
b) 1.10 gram block – 10mm x 6mm x 5mm - $240

NWA (unstudied): Diogenite. Found before September 2011. Tkw = 40g.
I got this little beauty at the show last year. BUT I got a bigger one for my collection this year. This is a fresh almost complete individual. It has crust (black with contraction cracks though a bit shiny from wind polishing) covering probably 90% of the specimen. It has one end broken (about 16mm x 15mm) that clearly shows the Bilanga like diogenite internal texture (though a bit hidden by adhering dirt – I have not attempted to clean this in any way). I am selling this for what I paid for it. This is actually cheaper than its current replacement cost, from what I saw at the show this year. From the prices I saw, any Diogenite (and eucrite or howardite for that matter) was priced at $12 to $15/g and above (unstudied even!). I know the official reports are that we don't have inflation here in the US, but those economists sure aren't looking into the meteorite world for their numbers.
39.76 gram individual – 42mm x 25mm x 20mm - $400

NWA (unstudied): Thin sections.
Here are some neat little "kits" a friend of mine created. He has been working on making his own thin-sections the past few years and has gotten quite good at it. He made these from a selection of miscellaneous pieces he pulled out of one of my miscellaneous NWA trays a couple years ago. He thinks that these are all an L6 with high shock level (he has found ringwoodite in all of these). These "kits" each contain the thin-section, the end piece it was made from and a couple photos of the slide through a microscope (in regular and crossed polarizers light). Neat items! I am trying to get him to put similar kits together with know items in the future as well.
Thin section with end piece it was made from and photos - $50

NWA (2968): Ungrouped achondrite (Dunite). Found 2004. Tkw = 265 grams.
This was one of those super rare/ super important things that I pretty much sold all of before I even had a chance to publicly list it (not a bad thing to have happen on my end). Some months ago, I had someone looking for a piece of this and I could not locate one at all. I thought I had set aside some. Recently while going through my "micro" box collection I discovered that I had two pieces hiding there, one being this huge (for this stuff) piece. (Now I wish I could find the 20 odd grams of NWA (5782) acapulcoite/ lodranite breccia I thought I set aside hiding there as well). Anyway, this piece was among the very largest that I got. I am not going to cut this as this material has the nasty habit of breaking apart into small little blocks when cutting or polishing (and in nature apparently, as there really were no big pieces). I have heard rumor of this stuff "going for" hundreds of dollars per gram. I am keeping this piece (partly due to its size) much more reasonable for now.
9.65 gram natural fragment – 18mm x 15mm x 12mm - $1000

ZAGAMI, Nigeria: Mars rock (Shergottite). Fell October 3, 1962. Tkw = 18.1 kilograms.
Happy birthday to this fall tomorrow! This fell 50 years ago. This specimen is certainly the signature piece of this offering. In fact, this comes with 2 signatures! This is a Haag collection piece and he has personally signed both the certificate of authenticity and the information card that comes with it! And, as a "birthday special" this is also priced below (per gram wise) pretty much ANY Mars rock that I am aware of right now! This is a great chance to get an "historic" specimen (Robert does not sell or sign much these days) at an affordable (per gram wise anyway) price. I have a picture of this piece ready to go out to interested collectors.
16.8 gram part slice – 70mm x 30mm x 4mm - $7000