Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale- List 146, last of 2013
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………………………LIST 146
December 17, 2013
Dear Collectors,
This is going out the right day but a bit later than I would have liked. I was out of town for 5 days and I just got back last night. Of coarse, there were great piles of mail, phone messages, etc. waiting for me (I seem to get more “business” when I am not home. Maybe I should try to be gone more often). Anyway, I got caught up on the really important stuff and finally got around to typing this up well after 1PM. This will most certainly be my last list of 2013.
WHITECOURT, Canada: Iron. Medium octahedrite (IIIAB). Found July 1, 2009.
Here is one of the tiny handful of known meteorites that have an associated impact crater. The crater is about 40meters (about 130 feet) in diameter. Many meteorite fragments have been found since its discovery. Unfortunately, not all that many pieces have made it into collector’s hands. Most of the area where meteorites have been found has long since been protected as off limits for hunting meteorites. A further burden lies in getting the proper export permits for the material. Regardless, these three pieces were found by a customer of mine AND legally exported. The two larger pieces even have their exact find coordinates with them. These all have the full legal export permits. However, the two largest specimens here were exported under one certificate so I made a copy of this certificate (front and back) to put with the smaller specimen (the larger comes with the original as does the smallest piece listed here). Anyway, these are all natural as found fragments that have a very obvious shrapnel shape to them. I think these may be the first pieces of this meteorite I have offered.
a) 40.5 gram individual – 35mm x 26mm x 15mm - $300 – has original export permit papers.
b) 49.7 gram individual – 36mm x 28mm x 15mm - $350 – has photo copy of export permit.
c) 67.6 gram individual – 55mm x 30mm x 15mm - $490 – has original export permit papers.
CAT MOUNTAIN, Arizona: (L5), impact melt breccia. Found 1980. Tkw = 2.7 kilograms.
I remember the excitement and confusion this thing created when it came out. Robert Haag had bought this thing from a guy
that found it while hiking on A-mountain in Tucson. The thing certainly didn’t look like a meteorite. It looked like slag,
complete with some gas bubbles (a big part of what the “confusion” was over. How could a meteorite look like this?). Cutting
and research did indeed show that this was a meteorite. I think it was the very first of its kind reported (these things are still quite rare but a number o them have come out of NWA). The stuff was so weird and exciting it rapidly sold at hundreds of
dollars per gram! Anyway, I did not get any myself and this piece may be the first I have offered (certainly the only large piece anyway). This is a nice ¼ slice (two cut edges, the remainder being the natural fusion crust/ natural edge). This piece also has nice internal structure as well. There are areas that look like highly shocked L5 but there is a large “vein” of melt flow (about
40% of the surface) splitting this “matrix” material. Neat piece. The provenance on this (so you can be sure it is NOT an NWA
being passed on as a more desirable specimen) is I got it from Matt Morgan who got it from the collector that bought it directly from Robert Haag years ago. There were no certificate/ cards with this but the writing on the bag sure looks like Robert’s hand writing to me.
13.3 gram ¼ slice – 40mm x 40mm x 2mm - $1000
CLAXTON, Georgia: (L6). Fell December 10, 1984. Tkw = 1455 grams.
This is the famous one that took out a mail box in its fall. I owned that for around 5 years before selling it off and buying a piece of land with the proceeds. Anyway, I have not had a piece of the meteorite in a long time. Matt had this small piece set out and I asked if I could offer it on a list. Obviously the answer was “yes”. This not an extremely exciting piece. Just a nice fresh triangular shaped slice in a membrane box. However, what little of this was released to collectors years ago has long since found homes and it is a rare day that one has the chance to buy any piece of this one.
.635 gram slice – 16mm x 8mm x 2mm - $300
CUMBERLAND FALLS, Kentucky: (Aubrite). Fell April9, 1919. Tkw = 14.1 kilograms.
Here are a couple really nice little micros (?) These are probably better termed as “macros”, small but still show a good representative texture (breccia in this case). These are the kinds of pieces I would have in my “micro” collection (in fact I may indeed have a similar piece of this meteorite hiding there right now). Not cheap, but very nice and rarely offered.
a) .83 gram slice – 15mm x 12mm x 2mm - $200
b) 1.13 gram slice – 14mm x 14mm x 2mm - $280
D’ORBIGNY, Argentina: (Angrite). Found 1979. Tkw = 16.55 kilograms.
I think this one was even worse than Cat Mountain for creating a stir in the collecting community. The first time I ever saw it ( a large piece that ASU had for a potential trade) I could not believe that it could possibly be a meteorite. It had a weird elongate crystal texture. Different but not that different. However, this thing had holes in it, sometimes very large holes. AND these holes sometimes had weird long brown crystals growing in them. Absolutely astounding. I it weren’t for the presence of at least some fusion crusty, and a lot of detailed scientific work, this thing would likely never have been recognized as a meteorite. (HOWEVER – this does NOT mean that things that have a passing resemblance to this, or other meteorite types ARE meteorites.). These are nice, thin small slices. These pieces (except the very smallest) have some open areas/ vesicles, though most of these are very irregular in shape. The largest piece though does have a 3mm “crater” that is really a portion of one of the large round vesicles found in this meteorite.
a) .57 gram slice – 10mm x 10mm x 2mm - $150
b) 1.00 gram slice – 13mm x 12mm x 2mm - $260
c) 1.56 gram slice – 20mm x 13mm x 2mm - $405
d) 1.90 gram slice – 20mm x 16mm x 2mm - $495
