BLAINE REED METEORITES- LIST 286 14MAY2026 RARE Orgueil CI1 for Sale

Orgueil, 162 years after it fell!

Blaine Reed Meteorites
P.O. Box 1141, Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
brmeteorites@yahoo.com

LIST 285 - May 14, 2026

Orgueil CI1
Click on image to enlarge.

ORGUEIL, France Carbonaceous chondrite (CI1). Fell May 14, 1864.
I just noticed that this is going the same day it fell, 162 years ago! As mentioned above, these samples consist of small fragments (from around small sand grain sized to a few mm sized, generally). The large lots are in glass vials. The small lots are in capsules. In the photo, I have the capsules lose, on their own. When I sell/ send any of these, I will put those capsules in a labeled magnifier box (exactly like the one that is up and to the right of the actual samples in the photo).
Fragments in either a capsule or glass vial.

CODE-
1Aa) .05 grams in a capsule - $125
1Bb) .10grams in a capsule - $250
1Cc) .25 grams in a capsule $600
1Dd) .50 grams in glass vial - $1100
1Ee) 1.0 grams in glass vial - $2200

Please specify the listing Code when contacting. 

Dear Collectors,

  This is kind of an "off the cuff" offering. I really had not planned on doing this RARE FALL offering. I got this material from Alan Lang a couple decades ago. I think he got it as part of a trade he had done with the Paris Museum some years earlier. I did sell some of this material way back, but that has to have been something like 15 years or so ago. I have had it set aside since before the European mission to land on a comet (where the landing craft ended up on its side in a canyon against a steep cliff wall such that it could not collect any data). My hope was that whatever data that landing would have collected might have shown that this material (CI1 meteorites) was likely from comets. I watched the Meteoritical Society’s magazines and bulletins to see what, if anything, the orbiting craft was able to learn about this. I don’t recall seeing much of anything being reported about any possible ties between CI1s and comets for years (it takes considerable time between data collection and/or sample returns before useful information starts getting published about it). Then I heard about the “upcoming” sample returns from carbonaceous asteroids (one through Japan and the US’s Osirus Rex mission). So, decided to set this stuff back until hearing what was learned from those. So far, I have not heard much (but then, I am not currently receiving the Meteoritics and Planetary Sciences magazines). I may be jumping the gun here and may end up wishing I had not done this offering, but here it is (and at prices equal to or a little lower than what I sold this material for when I did offer it years ago. Not that it has become less interesting scientifically or otherwise but some collectors have likely already filled the “CI1” hole in their collections with an NWA find. As such, I suspect fewer people will feel the need to have a piece of this). This offering came about from someone contacting me wanting display worthy pieces of rare or unusual meteorites with the emphasis on historics and falls. This one checks all the boxes. Well, the historic, fall and rare ones. “Larger display worthy” maybe not so much. The potential buyer did end up passing on this as all of my “samples” were indeed just crumbs/ fragments in vials or capsules. They wanted a substantial single larger piece. I, once upon a time, did have such things. I originally had a really nice 2.8gram crusted fragment. However, I ended up watching it (on its own) breaking into smaller pieces. Getting frustrated at seeing this, I ended up selling those fragments while they still had good size to them. It has been my experience that (even in a very dry climate, maybe a sealed, air-tight desiccated container would yield different results) this material does seem to be prone to making itself into exactly the kind of pieces I am offering here today.

Shipping:

US:
They have indeed raised rates again recently (this is starting to feel like a weekly thing. Hello 1970’s inflation!!). The last small package I sent (a jewelry box in padded envelope) ran me $9. The specimen was a little larger than some (and certainly larger than any piece being offered here would be) so I’ll stick to $8 for this basic shipping for now. As for priority – it looks like they have raised the rates for a small flat-rate box to a bit over $14 now (!!!). I have not shipped anything this way since the rate increase but I did have a small flat-rate box package come in from Kansas a couple days ago and noticed the shipping cost was OVER $14! So, I’ll be at $14 for small flat-rate box shipping at this point.

OVERSEAS:
It has been some time since I have sent anything out of the US. With all the hassles and paperwork these days, that us something of a blessing. At this point, anything going overseas, I will need to look up shipping costs. However, the last packages I sent out of the US were about $17 for my basic small/ cheap specimen in a padded envelope to Canada and around $25 going to Europe. For small priority flat-rate boxes I think it was around $30 to Canada and around $45 to Europe.