Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………………….LIST 163
November 18, 2014
Dear Collectors,
Here are some specimens from a collection I bought in Denver last September (well all but one piece – the oriented unstudied NWA is mine). These (and pieces that will fill out future lists) are all from Gordon Novak who lived in Amarillo, Texas and, unfortunately, passed away a few months ago. He bought a number of things from me over the years but the contents of this collection show he bought quite a lot elsewhere as well. I enjoyed chatting with him when he called to place an order. He was a bit of a joker/ smart _ss. I remember one time he visited the Denver show and picked out a number of items to purchase. He then asked “is there any discount for priests?” I said not really and asked “what, you are a priest?”. He said “no, but if there is a discount I’ll go find one”. Classic Gordon. Anyway, this is just an opening selection. I have a few dozen or so other things that will go out on future lists (likely into next year and maybe even beyond Tucson). I may also run a “want it out of inventory offering before the end of the year” list as well. I am in the process of doing inventory right now (grueling and tedious) and will set aside things like this as I go through it all.
ADMIRE, Kansas: (Pallasite). Found 1881.
This is a “natural” fragment that had a bit of a layer of oxide on it when I found it hiding in the corner of the collection box. It was mostly a brown blob but showed a few large obvious somewhat gemmy olivine crystals. Running it on the XRF showed it was definitely a meteorite and had the right Ni content for a pallasite. Though there was no label with it in the collection papers work, this is obviously a piece of Admire. I have since cleaned it (light wire brushing and soda-blasting) and coated it so it has a somewhat shiny metallic look to it. Neat piece and in much better shape than I would have expected for this meteorite being in a somewhat humid environment for years.
41.0 gram cleaned individual – 40mm x 27mm x 15mm - $200
CAMPO del CIELO, Argentina: Coarse octahedrite (IAB). Found 1576.
This is actually a nice, interesting piece. It is kind of a free-form bookend that stands up nicely on its own. It has natural edge around all but one (80mm long) side. One face is flat. The other side of this “slice” is wavy, free-form “cut”. Both cut surfaces have been etched and show half a dozen or so silicate (not graphite or sulfide) inclusions (one whole edge of the flat side is silicate). There are some tiny traces of rust (you have to look closely) but I did not have to do anything to this piece. It is just the way I got it. Clearly, this is from the area of the strewn field that the really silicated pieces (which are very stable) were found.
836.2 gram “slice/ bookend” – 112mm x 75mm x 15mm - $250
CHINESE TEKTITE:
These two large pieces came in a bag with an Indochinite, Thailand, Vietnam label. I can tell from their size, shape and surface features that they are really Chinese tektites. The smaller one is a dumbbell shaped piece and the larger is a flattened oval (though the ends are fatter than the middle quasi- dumbbell like).
a) 120.0 gram dumbbell shaped – 100mm x 30mm x 15mm - $30
b) 180.1 gram flattened oval – 90mm x 48mm x 20mm - $30
COCONINO SANDSTONE, Meteor Crater, Arizona.
This is a natural fragment (almost looks like it has fusion crust) of some of the rock that got blown out of the forming crater. Not rare (there are TONS of it scattered around the crater) but I have not had many pieces over the years (and they always end up selling quickly).
69.2 gram natural fragment – 50mm x 40mm x 20mm - $30 - SOLD
DIMMITT, Texas: (H3.7). Found 1942, recognized as distinct in 1950.
Here is a beautiful complete individual, one of the nicest I have seen. It has a pleasing orange brown to chocolate brown color, and obvious primary crust covering over half of the specimen (the remainder likely being secondary crust). It is a very solid piece with only a tiny hint of cracking, and that is on a corner where a plow mark starts (so being hit by a farmer’s plow likely caused this small crack). The only downer of this piece is that it obviously one of the very earliest that TCU turned loose of. I say this because it is clear that this, at one time, had both Monig labels on it: a large one with black background and a smaller one in white lettering (traces of both are still visible on this piece). When they first began releasing material to collectors (well dealers anyway) they required that we remove the labels that would identify where they came from (thankfully, this one did not suffer the indignity of having its labeling removed with a bench-grinder as I have seen done to some pieces). This was partly because, at that time (this was a long time ago folks), it wasn’t figured to be all that important and mostly because they didn’t really want to let folks know that they were willing to part with anything. The second part makes sense. Once the “cat was out of the bag” anyway they (TCU) got slammed with trade/ sales requests (and even angry demands) to the point of shear overload. I seem to recall that they pretty much shut down the release of any material to anyone for quite awhile after that. Thankfully, when they did start to allow a few things out once more, they didn’t require the labels to be removed (they clearly recognized the importance to the collectors of them then). Anyway, this is an early, cleaned label piece but being an earlier one, it is among the nicest.
509.0 gram complete individual – 100mm x 60mm x 50mm - - SOLD
MOLDAVITE:
Here is a really nice and fairly large specimen. It is a elongate tongue- shaped piece that shows really nice, deep in spots, surface etching/ features. Not quite Besednice grade but certainly well above what I usually have (which sells well at $6/g at shows).
17.3 gram individual – 53mm x 25mm x 10mm - $125
NANTAN, China: Medium octahedrite (IAB). Found 1958.
Of the pieces of this meteorite that came in the collection, this is the one that needed the most help. Thankfully, it didn’t need a tremendous amount of work. I wire-brushed the back side and did what I could to gently clean off what rust there was on the cut face. There wasn’t all that much but the work I did (brushing with the softest wire wheel I could find) did pretty much wipe out what little (weak) etch the piece had. I didn’t want to risk trying to re-etch it. Partly as I am lousy at this, partly the effort and time involved doing this to a piece that will sell so cheap but mostly because hitting potentially unstable meteorites with acid can set off the rusting process. Anyway, the results are a nice hand specimen iron end piece that may not clearly show an etch structure but does have some interesting inclusions.
257.1 gram end piece – 70mm x 38mm x 30mm - $50
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| NWA unstudied: 930 gram oriented individual "click on image to enlarge" |
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| NWA unstudied: 930 gram oriented individual |
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| NWA unstudied: 930 gram oriented individual |
Here is a dark chocolate brown pointed mountain-like specimen. It is very clearly oriented and shows elongate thumb-printing down all sides of the front. It is clear, from the shape and texture of the sides, that this was a much larger piece at one point a long time ago (why oh why don’t the guys picking these things up keep the pieces of oriented stones together?). I put this out on display around the mid-point of the show in Denver and almost got it sold a couple different times (I should have set it out a bit earlier, before many collectors had already spent their money – next time).
930 gram oriented individual/ fragment – 130mm x 90mm x 60mm - $1500
