Blaine Reed Meteorites for Sale-List 233: Fresh from CR Aguas Zarcas and more

List 233: Fresh from Costa Rica Aguas Zarcas and more

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
LIST 233

December 17, 2019

Dear collectors,

I am back from my Costa Rica trip. It was overall an enjoyable trip, though often quite warm and sticky (I am not used to humidity, even at relatively cooler temperatures). Kevin’s side of the country was, for the most part, sunny and dry. The dry season, with its strong winds out of the east, was setting in (we did still get some time of sitting in the clouds and watching fog drift by thing – a very, very rare thing for me to see in my part of Colorado but common where he is perched up on the top of a mountain). However, I feared that this might mean that the other side of the mountains might be rainy. I figured the clouds carrying moisture from the Gulf of Mexico to the east might end up getting the moisture wrung out of them as they got stuck against the easterly mountainsides and made their way up and over. Yep, this is indeed what we found. Aguas Zarcas was heavy cloud cover, lots of rain, some (generally minor) wind and at times surprisingly chilly for a tropical area. All of this certainly meant that we weren’t going to be out stomping around looking for specimens on our own (also because it was a bad time for lots of really dangerous snakes in the area. Unlike the ”nope ropes and danger noodles” crawling around my area theirs don’t make any noise to let you know you are getting to close. I have indeed managed to avoid getting bit by a rattle snake hidden in the leaves on a trail a couple times by knowing what they sound like - and that sound ain’t like they present it in the movies folks). So, we had to limit ourselves to meteorites that locals had already found. Unfortunately, it seems that not much is being found any more. Some of the few pieces that were recovered recently are certainly showing their age (I hand picked and avoided those, paying a higher price to do so of coarse) and other pieces (that looked to have been recovered quite earlier) seem to have become special family heirlooms (“not for sale”). Oh well, at least I tried. The few things I did pick up are listed here below at a price only a little lower than I have offered similar pieces in the past (but then, I didn’t really pay much less at the site and am not even including the travel expenses as part of these piece’s direct cost at this point). I am having trouble deciding what piece(s) I want to keep for myself so I thought I’d let fate decide – I’ll keep whatever is the nicest piece listed below that does not sell from this offering.

The other items on this list are the last of the Riker mounted display pieces I picked up as a collection during the Denver Show. All of these have labels and it turns out that one more of these is also a Casper labeled piece that had that label hidden under another different one. I’ll make notes in the descriptions below of what labels come with each specimen.

NOTE: As with the last offering, shipping on most of these (everything but the Aguas Zarcas) is going to be a bit higher (around $5 or $6 for a single item for basic US) as these, being in glass fronted display boxes, will have to be shipped packed in boxes. My usual jewelry boxes in a padded envelope won’t work for most of these pieces.

List 233
Click on Image to Enlarge

AGUAS ZARCAS, Costa Rica: Carbonaceous chondrite (CM2). Fell April 23, 2019.. These purchased Dec 9th, 2019.
These are the pieces that, as mentioned above, I bought on the trip I just got back from. These are all natural fragments (though the largest has some claim to being a complete individual) and, after a light cleaning on my part, are quite fresh. Each has at least some fusion crust present (actually, all but the smallest have quite substantial amounts of crust). As mentioned above, the largest piece looks like it could be considered a complete individual. It has around 45% nice thick primary crust coverage with the remainder being angular “broken” surfaces. However, careful inspection shows non-sharp (micro roll-over) edges on the primary crust where it meats one of these “breaks”. Also, a hand lens shows obvious (but small) patches of thicker fusion crust on the high spots of most of these broken surfaces (so they can’t be “after the fall” breaks). One surface looks to be crusted so thin that it looks almost like a smoke coating. There is some hints of smoothing of the break as well as the fact that no real inside texture/ structure can be seen (aside from a couple larger chondrules poking through perhaps) whereas the other fragments (clearly showing post fall breaks) the interior structure is clearly visible. Regardless, I am not pricing this piece higher because of any of this.
1) Natural fragments. All have some crust:
a) 4.4 gram fragment – 16mm x 15mm x 15mm - $350 – about 15% crust covered.
b) 5.0 gram fragment – 20mm x 20mm x 10mm - $400 – about 45% crusted.
c) 7.4 gram fragment – 25mm x 18mm x 12mm - $590 – about 50% crusted.
d) 22.2 gram fragment/ individual – 32mm x 28mm x 20mm - $1700

BRENHAM, Kansas: Stony-iron (Pallasite). Found 1882.
This is a Riker display that has two part slices – one 3.4g (17mm x 12mm x 5mm) and the other 13.5g (25mm x 20mm x 9mm). This has two labels; one (unnamed) that has the two weights as 3.4g and 14.2g. The label that was hidden underneath was a Casper label (for the 3.4g piece) that has “Happy Holidays!” written in the ‘Remarks” line. The larger piece looks to have a Nininger number on it. It certainly has the exact look of a Nininger number paint job, starts with the proper “10” for a Nininger Brenham but the next number/ letter is damaged enough to make it unclear exactly what was painted here (the last 3 look to be 119 though this could be “10M19”). This piece is also the typical thickness that Nininger would have cut back then.
2 part slices – 3.4g and 13.5g (possible Nininger piece) in Riker - $100

CAPE YORK, Greenland: Iron. Medium octahedrite (IIIAB). Found 1818.
Now this is a neat little Riker display. It has a label identifying the Meteorite (name, type, etc.) with “1 GM” handwritten on it, a nice etched 15mm x 10mm thin slice of the meteorite in a gemstone holder and a commemorative Greenland postage stamp (that looks to be from 1978). The stamp seems to show what looks like might be an ancient knife/ tool of some sort (this is indeed what the locals used these meteorites for) on a background of a large etched slice. I am assuming the “1GM” is the rough weight of the slice, but I didn’t pull all of this apart to find out.
15mm x 10mm etched slice, stamp and label in Riker box - $90

ESTHERVILLE, Iowa: Stony-iron (Mesosiderite). Fell May 10, 1879. Tkw = about 320kg.
This is a thick part slice that has its larger portion being the silicate material (though there are still substantial chunks of iron, they show a bit better on the backside). This comes with a metal “meteoritelabels.com” label with the proper 4.75GM weight written in pencil in the specimen weight space.
4.75 gram part slice – 20mm x 13mm x 6mm - $90

HOLBROOK, Arizona: Ordinary chondrite. (L/LL6). Fell July 19, 1912.
Here are two nice complete fresh individuals in a Riker display. These come with a Schooler’s label that has the pair weight of 1.6grams. Yep, this is exactly what my scale got. The smaller piece weighed .68g on my scale and the larger was .92g. The larger piece has some areas of secondary crust (of the type and thickness that leaves no doubt that it is secondary crust, unlike some of the areas on the largest Aguas Zarcas listed above) but is NOT broken and is certainly a complete individual (the smaller piece is pretty much completely covered in primary crust).
2 complete individuals .68g, .92g in Riker with Schooler label -$40

MILLBILLILLIE, Australia: HED achondrite (Eucrite). Fell 1960/ found 1970.
This is a part slice of the more unusual fine-grained textured area of this meteorite (the vast majority of Millbillillie showed a brighter black and white salt and pepper texture). This piece has one natural edge that shows some weathered fusion crust that has some of the orange spots/ staining that shows that this really is a Millbillillie. This has a nice label with it but this does not say who’s label (Ann E. Nonimus??) it was. This label has the weight as 2.4 grams but my scale showed this as 2.2 grams.
2.2 gram part slice – 22mm x 10mm x 3mm - $30

NORTON COUNTY, Kansas: Enstatite achndrite (Aubrite). Fell February 18, 1948.
This is a Riker containing two small fragments of this meteorite along with a Schooler’s label. The label has these as .8g together and this is indeed what my scale showed. Each of these fragments is roughly 10mm x 5mm in size.
2 fragments totaling .8g in Riker with Schooler’s label - $25

Blaine Reed Meteorites for Sale- List 230

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

LIST 230

September 26, 2019

Here is the e-mail version of my recently mailed list. I will post the group photos to my Yahoo group archives (if it will let me, I have had some difficulties in the past) but I can also e-mail them individually to anyone that wants to see a particular lot.

PLEASE NOTE: I will be out of town October 24th – 29th and November 6th – 13th (as well as late November – early December for Costa Rica).


CAMPO DEL CIELO, Argentina: Coarse octahedrite (IAB), silicated. Found 1576.
Here is an item that is a bit different. I have bought a fairly large amount of Campo nuggets over the past few years. Most are the usual rounded edge, angular all metal nuggets with only a possible hint of graphite or silicates. These pieces here are all very silicate-rich (I have been plucking them out of the batches of nuggets I get). Many (if not all) of these are probably better than 50% graphite/ silicates. Some pieces have these silicates as large nodules or zones. Others have them as fairly small blebs evenly scattered throughout (making the piece look more like a mesosiderite). Nothing super special, but cheap and (I thought) kind of cool/ interesting.
1) Tumbled/ cleaned nuggets that are very silicate-rich:
a) 4.7 grams - 17mm x 10mm x 7mm - $9 – not the piece in the group photo.
b) 7.5 grams - 18mm x 13mm x 10mm - $15
c) 10.2 grams - 18mm x 16mm x 8mm - $20
d) 15.3 grams - 22mm x 13mm x 11mm - $30


HOPE CREEK, Alaska: Ordinary chondrite (LL6). Found summer 1998. Tkw = 9.83kg.
Here are slices (and a nice “book-end” that stands up nicely on its own: 96.0 grams – 75mm x 45mm x 12mm for $570) that I cut from the 805g “main mass” I had offered on my October 2017 list. I was able to arrange a purchase/ trade deal that made it fully mine so I could commit my evil saw work on it so I can now offer everybody more affordable pieces of this meteorite. This is not a super pretty meteorite but it does have an interesting look to it. It has the occasional larger chondrule, clast and sulfide inclusion in a mottled tan to dark brown matrix. This meteorite actually has two shock grades assigned to it: S3 and S4. This stone is composed of lighter colored and less shocked (S3) clasts in higher shocked (S4) matrix.
1) Slices:
a) 5.1 grams - 20mm x 19mm x 4mm - $35
b) 9.5 grams - 35mm x 20mm x 4mm - $65
c) 16.2 grams - 35mm x 33mm x 4mm - $110
d) 31.2 grams - 50mm x 40mm x 4mm - $200
e) 65.5 grams - 85mm x 55mm x 4mm - $400 – large 15mm “chondrule”


NWA (10805): Ordinary chondrite. (L4), S2, W1. Found before May 2016. Tkw = 657 grams.
These are pieces from a studied main mass (only one stone was recorded for this find) that had been oddly cut down its long side. Unfortunately, this made it so I could not get any true complete slices (all of the larger slices have at least some small amount of cut edge on one end) as the finders had cut it what I would have considered the wrong direction for further specimen prep work to remove the research work specimen. Anyway, this is a fairly nice meteorite, having a low weathering grade of W1. This shows some well-formed chondrules, quite a lot of fresh metal in a mottled orange brown to medium brown coarse-grained matrix.
1) Slices:
a) 8.9 grams - 30mm x 19mm x 4mm - $15
b) 17.1 grams - 35mm x 30mm x 4mm - $27
c) 33.8 grams - 67mm x 40mm x 4mm - $50
2) End pieces: note, I only have these two.
a) 62.4 grams - 52mm x 32mm x 25mm - $90
b) 154.4 grams - 55mm x 44mm x 35mm - sold – Main mass.



NWA (2965): Enstatite chondrite. (EL6/7), possibly (EL3). Found 205.
This is the stuff that some called a “fossil” meteorite as it was found embedded as part of ancient lake- bed deposits. This shows no visible chondrules to speak of so I personally believed the 6/7 classification (some have even called this an achondrite Aubrite). However, some researchers argue that the presence of K-bearing glass and a non re-crystallized matrix show that this is really a type 3! Regardless, enstatite chondrites are not only very rare but are interesting in that the bulk content of the Earth is closest matched by melting this type meteorite. I managed to set aside a few “larger” solid pieces (most pieces of this stuff were thumb sized or so) years ago so I could cut these nice slices from. A couple REALLY large pieces I turned into end pieces (the largest has a large zone of the light gray material) at a per gram price cheaper than replacement cost for this material these days. This is very weathered so it doesn’t show any metal but it does have in interesting light brown sandy texture that is quite different from other meteorites. I sold quite a large amount of this material when I put it out at the Denver show this year.
1) Slices:
a) 4.1 grams - 30mm x 15mm x 4mm - $15
b) 8.0 grams - 30mm x 24mm x 4mm - $29
c) 16.2 grams - 52mm x 32mm x 4mm - $56
d) 25.6 grams - 53mm x 53mm x 4mm - $90
e) 39.1 grams - 75mm x 47mm x 4mm - $135
f) 58.9 grams - 100mm x 65mm x 4mm - $200
2) End pieces/ cut fragments:
a) 2490 grams - 130mm x 120mm x 95mm - $1300
b) 5690 grams - 230mm x 180mm x 100mm - $2800


AGUAS ZARCAS, Costa Rica: Carbonaceous chondrite (CM2). Fell April 23, 2019. Tkw = 27kg.
I know quite a few of you saw an offering of this when I first got my hands on pieces back in mid August. However, this is an important new meteorite and many of you would not have gotten a chance to get a piece (I have many customers that only get this mailed list). I do plan to go to the area in Late November and hope to pick up some bargains from people wanting $ for Christmas rather than a rock on the shelf. Right now (as I type this list) folks that have material in the field seem to be still stuck at $65/g (larger uglier fragments that have seen a lot of rain before they were recovered) and $90/g (better, fresher individuals) so I am not sure if my “Christmas money” idea will work out. These slices, to be honest, are from a piece that saw some rain, but not much. I paid extra to get this wire-sawed to avoid adding any more water, causing any further damage as well. I do have a few small (mostly under 1g) fragments with crust (a bit cheaper per gram as well), so ask if that is what you might prefer.
1) Slices:
a) .28 grams - 10mm x 8mm x 1.5mm - $34
b) .54 grams - 13mm x 12mm x 1.5mm - $65
c) 1.0 grams - 20mm x 17mm x 1.5mm - $120
d) 2.0 grams - 28mm x 20mm x 1.5mm - $225
e) 2.7 grams - 37mm x 19mm x 1.5mm - $300
2) Larger fragments/ individuals:
a) 12.8 gram crusted fragment – 30mm x 18mm x 17mm - $1250.00 – about 40% crusted
b) 24.0 gram individual – 30mm x 28mm x 20mm - $2400.00 – about 85% crust, partly oriented.
c) 53.4 gram individual – 45mm x 32mm x 25mm - $5300.00 – about 95% crust, partly oriented.


NWA (12636): HED achondrite (diogenite). Found 2018. Tkw = 776 grams.
This was a solid diogenite fragment that I got during the 2018 Tucson Show. It sat around for quite awhile before I did anything with it. Upon cutting I found it had a nice, classic texture – larger angular to rounded crystals (generally light tan to somewhat greenish in color) in a fine (bright, nearly yellow) matrix. There also appears to be a fair amount of chromite (small black angular inclusions) in most of these pieces. The research work showed this to be a typical (Vesta origin) monomict (one rock type) breccia. Nice stuff, and a great example of a “classic” diogenite (something I have NOT had in a surprisingly long time)
1) Slices:
a) 2.8 grams - 20mm x 12mm x 4mm - $30
b) 5.4 grams - 28mm x 15mm x 4mm - $58
c) 10.0 grams - 40mm x 25mm x 4mm - $105
d) 18.0 grams - 50mm x 35mm x 4mm - $180
e) 33.0 grams - 65mm x 50mm x 4mm - $315
2) End pieces:
a) 54.6 grams - 70mm x 25mm x 20mm - $500
b) 114.8 grams - 60mm x 47mm x 20mm - sold


METEOR CRATER POST CARD:
These are vintage (mostly unused) post cards. They have a picture of the entire crater that appears to be a (somewhat overdone) hand-painted/ colored black and white photo of the crater as seen from the air to the east. The bulk of these have a trademark of what looks to be “Fred Harvey Hotels-Shops, Restaurants”. A photo number of H-3971 is on the front under the picture along with “Meteorite Crater Near Winslow, Arizona”. I don’t know how old these are but I do have a couple that were used that seem to indicate that these are from the mid to late 1940’s. Each of these is in a protective slip and the price on these includes the shipping. No, I won’t be writing your address on it and dropping it the mail. I’ll send them out in a regular letter envelope. I do have two of the same post card (one has an old crease though) that appears to be the same but with less over-coloration of the photo and has “Fred Harvey, Trade Mark” and none of the other “Hotels, restaurants” and such. I suspect these are later (and, at least from what I can tell, quite a bit rarer) - $5 for the creased (the uncreased is sold).
Old mid to late 1940’s post card of Meteor Crater - $5 including shipping, $4 each for extras.

Please note:
Shipping: For small US orders $4 is OK for now. Larger orders are now $14 (insurance is extra if desired – I’ll look it up if you want it). Overseas prices have gone up A LOT the past couple years. Now small overseas orders are around $15 (I’ll have to custom quote any larger items/ orders). Registration (recommended on more valuable overseas orders) is $16.

I do have a fax machine that seems to work (but I have to answer it and manually turn it on), so overseas people can contact me that way if they must. How ever, for overseas orders, it probably is best to go ahead and use my brmeteorites@yahoo.com e-mail.

Blaine Reed Meteorites for Sale- List 229 AGUAS ZARCAS CM2

Blaine Reed Meteorites for Sale- List 229

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



LIST 229

August 12, 2019

I am sending this out a day early as I will be tied up with stuff outside (in near 100 degree heat) quite a bit tomorrow (but I will still try to check phone messages and e-mails fairly often those times I am inside). I apologize if this comes through a bit hard to read, I seem to be having trouble, once again, formatting this post. This seems to be a pretty common problem with Yahoo these days.

AGUAS ZARCAS, Costa Rica: Carbonaceous chondrite (CM2). Fell April 23, 2019. Tkw = about 27 kilograms.
Well, I haven’t been down to the area yet (I do plan to visit in mid/ late November) but I managed to get some reasonably priced pieces none the less. In fact, even if I had gone the area I am not certain that I could sell anything I might have picked up at prices as low as these (particularly considering travel expenses). The few contacts I’ve had from locals in the fall area trying to sell material have had prices of around $65/g (large/ ugly pieces) to as much as $130/g (nicer, smaller pieces). Anyway, most of you know the story on this already but here it is just in case you missed it. A little after 9pm local time a fireball traveling from the WNW to the ESE was recorder by cameras on top of the Poas and Turrialba volcanoes (I have been on top of both of these. Turrialba was belching dark clods of gas when I visited the site a few years ago. It has since erupted a number of times). Soon after, a kilogram sized meteorite fell through the roof of a house, damaging the rafters and a folding table stored below (I have access to this meteorite and associated artifacts. However, the owners of this have suddenly turned super greedy and want $1million US for this material. I was thinking it would probably, realistically be worth closer to $50 or $60k). Since that event was reported in local newspapers, many pieces have been found. However, rain came to the area soon after (not surprising considering the area) so most specimens have seen a bit of rain before their recovery. To be fully honest, all of my pieces are some of these. However, they showed very little effects and what was present was very easily cleaned off with a light baking soda air blast. I have three types of specimens: complete (and really nice) individuals, fragments that show at least some fusion crust (the largest is close to 50% crusted) and slices.

1) Complete individuals:
a) .49 grams – 8mm x 8mm x 6mm - $65 – oriented!
b) 1.7 grams – 17mm x 10mm x 8mm - $200
c) 3.4 grams – 17mm x 16mm x 10mm - $400 – oriented!

2) Fragments: most have some crust.
a) .52 grams – 9mm x 7mm x 5mm - $47
b) 1.0 grams – 13mm x 10mm x 5mm - $90
c) 2.2 grams – 20mm x 8mm x 8mm - $195
d) 6.4 grams – 22mm x 15mm x 14mm - $560
e) 12.8 grams – 24mm x 20mm x 18mm - $1080

3) Slices:
a) .25 grams – 8mm x 7mm x 1.5mm - $30
b) .36 grams – 10mm x 10mm x 1.5mm - $43
c) .68 grams – 18mm x 10mm x 1.5mm - $82
d) .94 grams – 20mm x 13mm x 1.5mm - $112
e) 1.52 grams – 23mm x 20mm x 1.5mm – $180
f) 2.47 grams – 27mm x 25mm x 1.5mm - $290

Blaine Reed Meteorites for Sale - List 226

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

                            LIST 226

May 6, 2019

I am sending this out in a very rushed way. It is a day earlier than usual and I do not have the photos for this offering yet (will work on that next). This is because I need to hear back ASAP on the question below (Aguas Zarcas). I have folks waiting for my response to their questions (buy now, at what price, make arrangements to go back into the field or not, etc).

New Costa Rica (CM2) Aguas Zarcas:
Nope, I don’t have any at this moment (but Kevin Kichinka has a few pieces he is offering on Meteorite Central I believe). However, we can get more material but it is NOT particularly cheap. I guess what I need to know is how many of you are still wanting a piece of this material and roughly how big of a piece would you be interested in. I am not certain exactly what kind of price we’d be talking (the locals seem to be raising the prices daily) but I’d certainly want to keep it at or below the prevailing prices currently (which I believe are around $100 to $150/g or so right now, but possibly less, particularly on big pieces and certainly on any that were recovered after the first rain). Anyway, if any of you are interested, please let me know. This will help me decide if it is worth shuffling $ around, possibly buying plane tickets, car/ hotel rental, etc.  It seems that I ended up being a few days late when I jumped on the new Cuba fall a couple months ago. For the most part, those that really wanted a piece already had a piece (and didn’t need one from me, even if my price was a tad lower). I just want to avoid making the same mistake (at much higher costs) on this one.

Anyway, here is an offering of things I (mostly) brought home from Tucson. Most of these things are consignments that were left with me. These are expensive things mostly as those are the kinds of things I don’t have a lot of in my own inventory and it is good to have some higher end things on display at the show (hence their being consignments). The owners of these items have been wondering when I was going to offer them: sell them or return them. I have been tied up with “must offer now” things since getting back from Tucson when I have had tome to do an e-mail offering such as this. I guess this is not really any different this time either, come to think of it.

Photos for this list: I will have two associated with this offering but they will have to wait. We have (yet again) more cloudy/ thunderstorm weather and Blake is currently buried in building an emergency “need these yesterday” Ham radio equipment order. I will post the pictures as soon as I have them and will send them directly to any of you wanting them as soon as I get them on my computer. 





ALLENDE, Mexico: Carbonaceous chondrite  (CV3). Fell February 8, 1969.
This is a nice end piece. It is not super, super fresh but nice none the less. In fact, what light weathering this has seems to have only highlighted the chondrules and other interior features. The back- side has a roughly 35mm x 35mm patch of thick primary crust in its center. The remainder is light secondary crust and the usual (for this fall) late fall edge chipping. This comes with a Moritz Karl label.

    86.6 gram end piece – 53mm x 51mm x 15mm - $1300

BASSIKOUNOU, Mauritania. Ordinary chondrite (H5). Fell October 16, 2006.
I am pretty certain that this is a piece I picked up from Karen Rohr when I picked up more of Linton’s collection a couple weeks before going to Tucson (I bough outright the stuff that was cheaper/ more common rather than trying to keep track of it all as consignment). This is a nice complete individual that Linton likely got from me (at least the label that came with it was from me). This is about 50% covered in thick, rounded edges fusion crust/ form with the remainder being still thick but rougher textured secondary crust.

    19.1 gram fully crusted individual – 35mm x 20mm x 16mm - $95

HENBURY, Australia: Medium octahedrite (IIAB). Found 1931.
This is a specimen that Jay Piatek left with me. He didn’t have the price on hand (had to go back and look that up). When he told me, it was a bit of a shock. It is, admittedly, quite high. However, this is indeed a superior specimen. It is one of the nicest Henbury pieces of its size I have ever seen. This is distinctly a shrapnel fragment but it has a wonderful oriented look to it. The “front” has a nice, smooth dome-like shape whereas the back has a distinct torn, bent edges shrapnel look to it (I’ll try and get a picture to send out of the back of this if anyone is seriously interested in this piece). Jay seems to have gotten this from Anne Black as it comes with an Impactika label.

    745.9 gram exceptional natural individual – 130mm x 65mm x 25mm - $2600

NWA (unstudied): Likely (H5) or (H6).
I got this end piece in some kind of trade (for Moldavite or Libyan Glass I think) in Tucson. Kind of wish I had the rest of this meteorite. It is one of the nicest examples of an H chondrite I have seen. This has lots of fresh metal – most of it in the form of the usual blebs scattered throughout, but also has a really nice solid metal vein. The back-side is really interesting as well. It has been highly wind-polished (though there is obvious crust around the edges) such that the metal vein and metal blebs stand out high and have been (naturally) polished to have a shiny metallic look to them. 

    38.9 gram end piece – 48mm x 35mm x 7mm - $40 

  
NWA (7034): Martian, polymict breccia. Found 2011.
Yep, here are the first pieces of ‘Black Beauty” I have ever offered. I remember when Carl Agee (UNM) carried a nice end piece into my room (probably Tucson 2012) and had me run it on my XRF. He stood there with a big grin. To me, this looked like a “typical” moon rock but the XRF read it as Mars! Yep, I got that one right. This was originally called a basaltic breccia, as much of this is composed of fragments of various basalt rocks. However, more interesting things have turned up as researchers have worked on it. Pieces of impact melts, sedimentary rocks (! – our first from Mars) and more have been found so this has been re-classified as a “polymict” (multiple different rock types) breccia. I admit that the prices on these pieces are some fairly large numbers BUT this is, by far, the cheapest per gram I have ever seen this material. These are all natural fragments as found. I have considered (and may yet) buying one of these (likely one of the smaller pieces) getting it wire-sawed in half (any of these should work for that), sell half and put the other half in my collection (I think this is the only type Mars rock I don’t have yet). These come with a Jay Piatek Collection label.

a) 1.24 grams – 18mm x 15mm x 3mm - $3100
b) 1.61 grams – 17mm x 11mm x 5mm - $4000
c) 4.12 grams – 20mm x 20mm x 6mm - $10,300

NWA (10652): Primitive achondrite (Lodranite). Found 2015.
I am not certain if the exact story on this piece. It was dropped off with me in Tucson in a Riker that has a simple round sticker saying “NWA 10652, Lodranite, 9.47”. This may be a piece of the original 146.1g reported stone (I have my doubts on this, given the large surface area of this slice) or (more likely) a pairing. I did a bit of research and found that, regardless, this does indeed look the to be the same stuff as the original reported stone. This is weird/ odd material. It is a “matrix-poor” breccia that, on first glance, looks very, very much like an LL6 chondrite. It has some metal grains and small breccia fragments that are rounded and do a good job of mimicking chondrules! However, the XRF (yep, I ran it to be sure) clearly shows that this is NOT an LL6. This is a complete slice of a natural fragment. About 1/3 of the edge of this slice has weathered fusion crust with the remainder being weathered old natural breaks (or since lost thin secondary crust).

    9.47 gram complete slice – 55mm x 43mm x 1mm - $250

TISSINT, Morocco: Martian (Shergottite), olivine phyric. Fell July 18, 2011.
This is a beautiful complete stone. It does have some areas (maybe 20% of the surface) that, at first glance, look to be fresh breaks. They indeed are BUT they were formed late in the fall. Careful inspection under magnification shows that these “fresh breaks” have small patches of melt/ fusion crust on the high points so they are really very light secondary crusted areas. The remainder of the stone is covered by nice shiny black primary crust. A nice piece of a meteorite I don’t see much of these days.

    3.71 gram complete individual – 16mm x 12mm x 12mm - $2500