Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
LIST 217
July 17, 2018
Dear collectors,
Here is an offering that is a batch of things that I have picked up while I was doing the (popular) Rohr collection offerings or had set aside earlier and forgot about. I kind of hesitate to do summer time offerings like this as few folks are home and those that are generally have their minds elsewhere other than collecting in the summer months (so responses are generally minimal if any to July and August offerings). However, today is a scheduled offering day, I did have a few interesting things to offer and I did want to take this chance to make a couple announcements.
First, I will be out of town early next month (August 2nd through the 7th) for the Creede mineral show, hiking, visiting some folks and maybe picking some mushrooms (assuming we actually GET any this year. It has been so dry and looks like it will continue to be that it might be another no mushroom year similar to last year). The show itself runs 10AM to 5 or 6pm Friday through Sunday (the 3rd, 4th and 5th – with Sunday being the earlier closing time). They talked about moving the show to a big new tin building to the south of town but I think that ended up being turned into a school so the mineral show is in the usual (neat) spot inside the mountain on the north end of town.
Other announcement: I have a customer desperately seeking a complete Allende individual in the 150 to 180 gram size range (obviously, the two listed below and all the other pieces I have are far to small). He has contacted me several times over the past few months checking to see if I have found anything. Nope, nothing suitable so far. So, if anyone out there has such a thing they might consider selling, let me know.
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| LIST 217 |
ALLENDE, Mexico: Carbonaceous chondrite (CV3.2). Fell February 8, 1969.
Here are a couple small pieces that came in with collections I picked up fairly recently. The smaller (fragment) is very fresh and has lots of CAIs. The larger (individual) came labeled as “possibly Murchison”. Well, they had the carbonaceous chondrite part right but this is certainly a nice Allende individual and NOT Murchison (unfortunately). This is also quite fresh but it does show a little (very little) bit of adhering dirt so it was likely not picked up right after the fall, but certainly not long after. This is a complete individual, but it does have the usual chipped crust areas and edges that pretty much all Allendes have.
a) 6.1 gram fragment – 20mm x 13mm x 13mm - $60 – 11mm x 8mm patch of crust, lots of CAIs.
b) 20.1 gram individual – 30mm x 20mm x 18mm - $200 – about 80% crusted
b) 20.1 gram individual – 30mm x 20mm x 18mm - $200 – about 80% crusted
BAZINE CREEK, Kansas: Ordinary chondrite (L4). Found April 15, 2014. Tkw = 438 grams.
Here are some pieces of a meteorite that I didn’t even know existed before a couple weeks ago. This was found by a guy looking for arrowheads and noticed that it looked unusual. A friend of this person had found (and sold) a meteorite to a collector/ dealer and suggested that he contact that person. Well, the rest is history and these slices are part of the results. This material is nothing special. It shows some nice obvious chondrules in a medium to dark orange/brown matrix. I only have relatively small slices in hand right now (the ones listed below) but I can get the main mass (116g end piece - $1000) and have some pictures of that if anyone is interested. I have left these as I received them – mostly unpolished (as this is relatively fragile material) so most of these pieces show some saw marks. The largest slice here is a complete slice and comes with an Allen Shaw Collection label.
1) Slices:
a) 1.1grams – 18mm x 8mm x 4mm - $11
b) 2.9 grams – 24mm x 16mm x 4mm - $29
c) 3.4 grams – 25mm x 17mm x 4mm - $34
d) 8.3 grams – 43mm x 23mm x 4mm - $83
e) 16.8 grams – 52mm x 40mm x 3mm - $160 – complete slice, comes with label.b) 2.9 grams – 24mm x 16mm x 4mm - $29
c) 3.4 grams – 25mm x 17mm x 4mm - $34
d) 8.3 grams – 43mm x 23mm x 4mm - $83
2) Small fragments in a bag – about .3grams - $5 – Not in photo (I forgot about these).
NICKEL BLOOM/ TREES:
As I collect pure elements, I have seen plenty of small, lumpy balls of nickel. I have even seen a couple “trees” like these. However, this is a particularly neat display because it has 3 different sized trees welded to a 5cm-diameter iron disk. So this makes for a much nicer paper weight/ display than just having a tree or two (or the lumpy balls that I have in my collection). I ran the XRF on these and they are mostly pure nickel. I did pick up a trace (1% or so) of Cobalt on one of them.
3 nickel trees on 5cm iron disk display - $50
NWA (unstudied): Stony-iron (Mesosiderite). Found before Feb. 2018. Tkw = 37 grams.
I got this from a person who got it from a Moroccan, hoping it was a pallsite. There was indeed a rather large (8mm or so) olivine looking crystal (partly wind eroded) on one surface so this was not a pie in the sky hope. Upon polishing down the flattest surface, it quickly became clear that this was a mesosiderite and not a pallasite. There is the large crystal (well, the remains of it after weathering a plucking while sanding) but the rest of it has a nice fresh mesosiderite texture; a nice mix of similar sized iron and silicate grains (with the silicates being around twice the area of the metal overall). Nice looking stuff, wish more of it was available, I’d love to have bigger pieces of this to get studied and offer. Unfortunately, this was the ONLY piece available.
36.5 gram end piece – 28mm x 25mm x 20mm - $180
PLAINVIEW (1917), Texas: Ordinary chondrite (H5). Found 1917 but likely fell 1903.
This is a complete slice that has nice (somewhat weathered) fusion crust covering the entire edge. The edge also shows that the whole stone had some nice sculpting to it. The interior is a bit dark (this is obviously a later/ more recent recovery piece), but does still show metal, troilite and breccia fragments. The only real issue with this piece is that it is quite wedged – having thickness varying from 6mm to 12mm. A nice (affordable, per gram wise anyway) piece of a fairly famous meteorite none the less.
160.2 gram complete slice – 80mm x 60mm x 9mm - $275
TAMBO QUEMADO, Peru: Medium octahedrite (IIIAB). Found 1950. Tkw = 141 kilograms.
This is one of my favorite etched meteorites. Most meteorites loose their etch when they have been heated. Tambo was highly heated at some point (in an attempt to either melt or torch cut it I suspect) but this seems to have only helped the structure show upon etching somehow. The heating somehow seems to have created more contrast in the etch (some areas are distinctly darkened) making the etch one of the more vibrant in the meteorite world. I have seen a few etched Tambo pieces that were cut from a section of the meteorite that was (supposedly) not heated and they really didn’t look like much to me. This is a little rectangular etched sample (no natural edges) is from the heated material and does show this better etch fairly well (though it could stand to have it etched a bit deeper. I didn’t try this as I, frankly, pretty much suck at etching).
19.5 gram etched rectangular sample – 23mm x 20mm x 5mm - $135
TIERACO CREEK, Australia: Medium octahedrite (IIIAB). Found 1922. Tkw = 41.7 kilograms.
Here is an interesting item I got dropped off with me quite late during this past Tucson show. If I had it earlier (and knew of how little of it is in private hands) I would have easily sold this there at the show. This is NOT an impressive specimen. It is kind of half way between iron and shale. The best way to describe this is as a “spall fragment” (that has also spalled a 1.7g smaller piece and a few crumbs). Interestingly, the description of this meteorite in the 3 volume Buchwald Iron Meteorites book set describe exactly this concerning the Tieraco Creek meteorite (mentioning that it clearly had a shape sculpted by this exact spalling and had such layers coming off of it in places). Now on to the rarity of this stuff. I personally have never had or seen a piece of this meteorite in all my years of collecting/ dealing. I also have access to a collection list of a person who probably has (or had – I think some of the pieces have since been offered for sale) the largest collection of iron meteorites known (in different names, not necessarily by weight) and they did not have even a crumb of this one. Ths label that comes with this specimen looks to be fairly old (1970’s perhaps) and is from a dealer I have never heard of (Apple Valley Minerals Ltd. Salavella- Fred Cororan of Rhode Island).
69.1 gram spall fragment and crumbs – 65mm x 55mm x 7mm - $690
