Blaine Reed meteorites For sale- List 200 - After Tucson #1

Blaine Reed meteorites For sale- List 200 - After Tucson #1

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
……………………………………………………LIST 200

February 21, 2017

Dear collectors,

Here is my first (of several) “after Tucson” lists. These are comprised of things I bought and/ or were left with me to sell at the show.


ADMIRE, Kansas: (Pallasite). Found 1881.
Now here is a slice that will make pretty much any collector say “WOW!”. This has a HUGE (180mm x 100mm) chunk/ cluster of olivine making up better than ½ of the specimen (the remainder being the usual iron/ olivine pallasite mix). I had a slice similar to this (it was cut from the same amazing specimen, which I now own the main portion of) years ago in Tucson and it sold quickly (with good reason). This piece is a thinner one than the one I sold earlier so it shows light through a good number of the crystals. I cannot guarantee stability of any piece of meteorite (even Gibeon will rust if not coated and/or mistreated) but I strongly suspect that this piece is far, far better than most. Part of this is that the end piece (and this slice) was cut over 5 years ago and was sitting around a shop in Arkansas (not exactly a dry area) with no special protection and it hardly had any rust at all (only a few small spots) and took no time at all for me to shine up (most Admire specimens would have probably exploded under such conditions). Secondly, Mike Miller did what little treatment was needed on this piece before I got it (something this thin would not have survived long enough to be polished and etched if it were unstable). I trust him with rust prone material more than anyone else. I have seen (and owned) pieces of “unstable” meteorites from Mike (like Chinga and Nantan slices) that have lasted years with no sign of rust – so he obviously has some pretty good processing secrets.
483.8 gram slice with large olivine – 240mm x 150mm x 3mm - $2500

AIQUILE, Bolivia: Ordinary chondrite (unstudied). Fell November 20, 2016.
Back in 2001, I personally found Bolivia’s first know stone meteorite – an extremely weathered 12.3g fragment of an (H5) called “Sevaruyo”. Carancas ALMOST became their first witnessed fall but managed to make it a few miles into Peru to form its impact crater. Well, here now FINALLY is Bolivia’s true first witnessed fall (of any kind). This material has not been studied yet (that work is being done in Brazil, apparently) but, to me, this is clearly an H4 or H5 breccia. I picked up a few pieces of this (one of which I am keeping) in a trade. These are both slices of a small fragment (most of the pieces recovered from this fall are broken) and have at least one edge showing fusion crust. The interior of these is bright and fresh, showing lots of metal in a white to light gray matrix. Not cheap specimens, honestly, but I don’t think that a lot of this material will be coming out (I hear rumors of making further recoveries “government property”).
1) Part slices:
a) 3.28 grams – 20mm x 17mm x 3mm - $150
b) 5.47 grams – 35mm x 17mm x 3mm - $220

CANYON DIABLO, Arizona: Coarse octahedrite (IAB).
This is another piece that came with the iron collection I bought at the show. It is a nice medium grade (not super art sculpted but certainly not an ugly lump either) that has been moderately wire brushed. It still shows some natural oxide areas among the usual gray-black brushed surfaces. I have priced this at what I was getting (wholesale) out of similar sized (but probably not as nice) pieces during the show.
190.2 gram brushed individual – 55mm x 35mm x 25mm - $160

GEBEL KAMIL, Egypt. Ni-rich ataxite (ungrouped). Found 2008
This is a nice mirror-polished (on both sides) super thin complete slice. I had sold this to an antiquities dealer some years ago (he thought it might sell to people collecting Egypt stuff among his customers). He ended up trading it back to me this Tucson for Moon/ Mars boxes. Anyway, this is a nice piece and is probably priced below what I sold it for those years ago (it was a consigned item at that time).
41.6 gram mirror-polished complete slice – 85mm x 60mm x 1mm - $145

MOLDAVITES:
I traded for a nice hand-full of these at the show. These are mostly fairly typical pieces (in size shape and texture). I try to have in inventory pieces that are complete (not chips and fragments), have nice texturing (not super deep etching like Besednice pieces but not river rounded lumps either) and are moderately priced. The few I picked out here are merely a few that kind of caught my eye as being a bit better and larger than much of the rest (though there are indeed plenty of other nice pieces remaining in the lot). These are nice complete specimens that are covered with quite intense (but not real deep) pitting/ etching. The largest piece has several deep grooves that are likely the result of ground acid etching of cooling or stretch cracks in the specimen originally after it fell.
1) Nice natural individuals:
a) 7.2 grams – 33mm x 17mm x 9mm - $40
b) 9.9 grams – 30mm x 28mm x 8mm - $55
c) 14.1 grams – 33mm x 30mm x 9mm - $80

SIKHOTE-ALIN, Russia: Coarsest octahedrite (IIAB). Fell February 12, 1947.
This is actually a pretty nice specimen despite the fact that it has been cleaned (wire-brushed) a bit harsher than I would have chosen. Sadly, it does not really appear that the piece originally had enough rust spots on it to warrant brushing in the first place. None the less, this is still covered with fusion crust (that is just a bit shinier than an unbrushed crusted piece) and is clearly a nice oriented specimen. The front is the conical (all be it fairly thin) thumb-printed shaped you expect on an oriented specimen. The back is very flat and has a clear a roll-over rim running around its outer edge. A nice piece, just cleaned a little more than I would have done.
50.3 gram oriented individual – 40mm x 25mm x 10mm - $175