Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………………………LIST 140
August 20, 2013
Dear Collectors,
Here is a short list of some things I picked up recently. I thought about holding them for display for the Denver show in a few weeks but then decided to offer them now.
GAO, Burkina Faso: (H5). Fell March 5, 1960.
Here is probably the largest Gao I have ever had. Now I have had this piece twice. I had it briefly in Tucson one year where it rapidly sold to a collector. Now the collector has sold it back to me. This is a nice complete individual. It does have one edge chipped/ late break area about 50mm x 12mm in size. The remainder of this is nice black fusion crust that shows nice contraction cracks and even some flow lines (very rare for Gao) in areas. This is a blocky piece but the crust is all (aside from the above mentioned break/ edge chip) all primary crust. This does show quite a bit of nice soft thumb-printing as well. A nice display piece and probably the cheapest (per gram anyway) fall available right now.
977 gram complete individual – 125mm x 60mm x 50mm - $1500
GEBEL KAMIL, Egypt. Ni-rich Ataxite. found 2008. Tkw = about 1600 kilograms.
Like the Gao above, this is the biggest piece of this meteorite I have had. And, like above, it came from the same collector (who, obviously, liked big display pieces). This is a shrapnel fragment, as all pieces of this meteorite in collector's hands have been. It certainly looks to have been a surface found piece as it is pretty much all a nice gently wind-polished chocolate brown (buried pieces tended to have a more yellow/ brown rusty color/ texture). An article in a recent Meteoritics & Planetary Sciences on some ancient iron beads (that were made out of meteorite) mentioned this meteorite. It seems that the Egyptians started referencing the sky in their words for iron around 5000 years ago. The Gebel meteorite seems to have fallen right around this time. It even seems that debris from the impact covered an old trade road. So it is highly likely that this fall was witnessed somehow by the people of the area and may have been what clued them in to the idea that iron came from the sky.
2529g natural shrapnel fragment – 150mm x 110mm x 40mm - $1800
KUNASHAK, Russia: (L6). Fell June 11, 1949. Tkw = 200+ kilograms.
I have only a few pieces of this fall available. I may break up the larger slice if need but I am hesitant to do so as it does show some nice breccia texture to it. The 3 small pieces in a bag would be ideal for the somewhat micro collector (or resale to such collectors). The slices are polished on one side. The larger piece, unfortunately, is a bit rough on its back side. It was obviously cut with a saw that was to small (took two tries from different directions to cut it) and is wedged, but still shows nice breccia on that side as well.
a) 1.5 grams 3 fragments/ cut fragments in a bag - $25
b) 7.6 gram slice – 28mm x 22mm x 4mm - $140
c) 48.8 gram slice – 60mm x 60mm x ~4mm - $500
LOS CERRILLOS, Argentina: (H4), S2, W2. Found 2006. Tkw = 1kilogram.
To me, this looks a lot more weathered than a W2 grade, but then I am not looking at it as a thin section. Regardless, with only a kilo known, there is very little of this material available to collectors (I have only these four pieces) so don't hesitate too long if you want to add this new name to your collection. Three of these pieces are slices but I do have one end piece (about 40 grams).
a) 4.7 gram slice – 45mm x 13mm x 3mm - $28
b)
c) 39.5 gram end piece – 45mm x 35mm x 5mm - $200
d) 42.0 gram complete slice – 60mm x 50mm x 5mm - $230
NWA (5489): (Howardite). Found 2008. Tkw = 288 grams.
This is super fresh and every piece has at least some fresh black crust on the edges. The largest is a wonderful end piece (that I will likely put in my collection if I don't sell it here) that shows contraction cracks and some flow lines/ ridges in the crust (which covers 80% or so of the back side). This has an appearance very similar to Kapoeta and, frankly, is just as fresh. However, this meteorite, being a "lowly NWA" is priced at a small fraction of the price.
a) 3.1 gram slice – 18mm x 13mm x 4mm - $60
b) 7.4 gram slice – 30mm x 30mm x 3mm - $140
c) 12.4 gram slice – 35mm x 35mm x 4mm - $240
d) 25.0 gram cut fragment – 40mm x 33mm x 8mm - $500
e) 91.3 gram end piece/ main mass – 68mm x 50mm x 13mm - $2000
