Wednesday, 4 December 2013

Blaine Reed Meteorites - List 145, inventory clearance items

Blaine Reed Meteorites - List 145, inventory clearance items

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………………………LIST 145

December 4, 2013
Note: please be patient if you respond to this offering by e-mail. I seem to be having a lot of troubles with Yahoo mail today. Most all of my actions (opening an e-mail, deleting one, etc) seem to be endlessly ending up with a "connection timed out" error message. A half dozen or so tries, I can usually get the job done though (for now).

Dear Collectors,
This is, yet again, delayed a day from when it should have been sent out. We have some seriously bad weather passing through and I spent most of yesterday (and Monday) trying to prepare. A “roofer” who I hired to coat the roof to hold the shingles from blowing off in our strong winds, decided to take it upon himself to “fix” the shingles that were already partly broken and possibly flapping in the wind. Rather than sealing them down with tar underneath, he did this by simply nailing the things down completely through from above. What this did is give water a direct path through the roof along these nail holes – something I learned about when it rained/ snowed last week (and I got a big wet spot on the inside ceiling in my bedroom). I had been waiting for nice weather to get up on the roof and deal with this problem (patching/ coating these new holes/ nails). Unfortunately, we have not had any nice weather. I have had no sunshine for over 2 weeks now (our last really nice day was November 18th. I flew my plane that day and the ignition system, yet again, “let me down”. Time for a complete re-build on that part of this machine). I have shut down the solar hot water system for the house as there has been no heat generated lately and I need what little heat is still in the storage tank for keeping pipes of the system from freezing later this week. We are also expecting “the coldest temperatures in over 3 years” the next couple weeks. I had a couple weeks of 15 below weather last January so I am not sure I like hearing this bit of news. I had to spend the rest of the time I had Monday and Tuesday figuring out and implementing a way to put up insulation over my green house windows/ heat collection surfaces (again, no sun for over 2 weeks means no heat stored in the water barrels to speak of and sub-zero temperatures mean BIG problems with out insulation and an electric heat source). We have also been told that we may be getting over a foot of snow here as well (!!) We only average 18” in an entire year. This may mean that orders from this offering may be delayed in getting to the post office if the weather folks are remotely correct (my driveway is over 450 feet long and it takes around 7 hours to shovel it out, something that, thankfully, I have only had to do a couple times in 12 years now).

Anyway, these are things I have turned up while doing inventory work that I have only a piece or two left of. I have greatly reduced the price on these few stragglers from what they originally were. I’d rather sell them now than keep these “names” going on into inventory next year.

HYATTEVILLE, Wyoming: (L6). Found April 2008. Tkw = 8911 grams.
I never had a whole lot of this meteorite (the main mass – some 4kg plus – went to a collector in Canada) but now I am down to these two pieces. I think these were my largest pieces; an end piece/ cut fragment and the next slice that came off. This is a fairly fresh meteorite (weathering grade of 1). It shows quite a lot of fresh metal in a mixed light tan to medium brown spotted matrix. Nothing really special or rare by type, but very few meteorites from Wyoming are available to collectors. I sold most of this at around $4.50/ gram. I am pricing these substantially cheaper for a sale “as they are”. IF I end up breaking these down into smaller pieces (something I might do for Tucson if they don’t sell here) the resulting pieces will likely be priced back at that higher level.
a) 81.6 gram slice – 116mm x 70mm x 3mm - $225
b) 222.2 gram end piece/ cut fragment – 200mm x 75mm x 10mm - $550

KORRA KORRABES, Namibia: (H3). Found 1996, recognized 2000. Tkw = about 140 kilograms.
This is an end piece/ cut fragment that I had planned on cutting up into slices but didn’t for a couple reasons. One is I just plain didn’t take the time or effort to put it ion the “get done” pile. The other is that there is some controversy over whether or not this is truly Korra Korrabes or a new meteorite. There has been a rumor floating around that the fresher pieces like this (Korra Korrabes is usually really dark brown, this is a nice lighter brown, has good metal and clearly shows some breccia clasts) might be a “new” unrecognized meteorite. This may yet turn out to be the case (I think it is being worked on) but I am currently taking the view that this is most likely a piece of Korra Korrabes that simply was in an area that exposed it to less oxidation (as this potential “new” meteorite is also an H3). Anyway, I decided to offer this (the only piece that is mine – I have a couple that are consigned yet) as it is, a nice end piece, rather than cut it up into slices.
333.6 gram end piece/ cut fragment – 65mm x 50mm x 40mm - $330

NWA 2136 : (L3.5). Found before February 2004. Tkw = 1045 grams.
I had a bunch of slices of this but seem to have only these two pieces remaining. This is rather interesting looking stuff. It is somewhat porous and shows lots of gray chondrules in a light brown/ orange matrix (actually, the smaller piece has a lot of dark red/brown in its matrix, making the chondrules even more obvious).
a) 6.3 gram slice – 33mm x 32mm x 3mm - $20
b) 16.0 gram slice – 48mm x 38mm x 3mm - $50

NWA 5774: (LL5) polymict breccia. Found before October 2008. Tkw = 815 grams.
This is an interesting meteorite. It clearly shows clasts of various sizes and textures in slices (the smallest here is about ½ one texture and one half another totally different one). Research work showed that these clasts were fragments of LL material of different compositions so this meteorite was classified as a polymict breccia. This meteorite is quite fresh and shows fresh metal and various clasts (brown to dark gray) and chondrules in a light brown (almost orange) matrix. These three pieces are all I have remaining of this meteorite.
a) 3.8 grams – 28mm x 20mm x 3mm - $11
b) 8.3 gram slice – 33mm x 23mm x 4mm - $25
c) 10.5 gram slice – 35mm x 33mm x 3mm - $30

NWA 5782: Achondrite. Acapulcoite/ Lodranite. Found before September 2008. Tkw = 130 grams.
I had only two stones of this exciting, unique meteorite. This meteorite looked to be a breccia with impact melt looking veins. The thing turned out to be a unique breccia mix of fragments of both acapulcoite (45%), lodranite (25%) in a matrix (30%) composed of debris from both lithologies. This was described by the researchers working on it as “the Rosetta Stone of the acapulcoite-lodranite parent body”. I came close to selling out of this at around $400/g when I offered a couple years ago. I have only these 4 small/ thin slices (in membrane boxes) remaining.
a) .19 gram slice – 15mm x 3mm x 1mm - $47
b) .26 gram slice – 13mm x 7mm x 1mm - $65
c) .32 gram slice – 11mm x 6mm x 1.5mm - $70
d) .36 gram slice – 13mm x 10mm x 1mm - $85

MOAPA VALLEY, Nevada: Carbonaceous chondrite (CM1). Found September 2004. Tkw = 698.8 grams.
I think there are only two CM1 chondrites that have ever been available to collectors; this one and a mere 19gram NWA specimen. Don’t fear the “high” total known weight on this one. I know that the main mass is now safely part of a permanent collection (a brokered the deal) and very little of this truly rare stuff is floating around. So, if you have been waiting to add a piece of this “new” type carbonaceous chondrite to your collection, don’t wait to long, this is indeed my very last piece (and priced at about what it cost me).
.64 gram fragment – 11mm x 6mm x 5mm - $400

MUONIONALUSTA, Sweden: Fine octahedrite. Found 1906.
Here is a selection of 7 small etched slices ranging in size from 11 grams up to 26 grams. I have had these sitting aside for a couple years and kind of forgot about them (I had planned on using these to replace Gibeon for people that wanted an etched iron but then Seymchan came along). The sizes are: 11.7g, 16.3g, 17.1g, 17.2g, 20.2g, 21.3g, 26.7g for a total of 130grams. These do have a nice etch (generally better than Gibeon actually) and are in surprisingly nice condition. Despite the years (several) I have had them, the have only developed a few hints of rusting (and even then only on a couple of the pieces) – mostly a small rust line (as even Gibeon gets) or a back ground hint of brown staining (that may really be a residue from etching). I am offering these as a lot for below what they would cost from the sources today. However, I will sell these individually (at $1/g) if the lot does not sell intact after a couple days.
130gram lot of 7 etched slices - $100

SaU 504, Oman: (L5/6). Found March 12, 2010. Tkw = about 20 kilograms.
I had a pretty good amount of this at one time but now seem to have only these two pieces. It is not a rare or particularly interesting meteorite but it is cheap (I sold most of it at $.80 to $.90/g) and well prepared (all pieces had at least one side polished to a high diamond polish). These two pieces are just a basic small slice and an end piece that really displays nicely. I don’t have many Oman stones and likely will have very few in the future (the few people I knew who were getting them have long since moved on to other areas now that it has indeed been made clear that this fantastic hunting locality is now off limits).
a) 38.4 gram slice – 45mm x 45mm x 7mm - $20
b) 973.3 gram end piece – 140mm x 75mm x 55mm - $400