Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale- List 167 - last of the Novak collection

Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale- List 167 - last of the Novak collection

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………………….LIST 167

January 20, 2015

Dear Collectors,

I hadn’t planned on doing a list today, but then noticed that I have a week yet before I leave for Tucson (gads, I REALLY need to start getting ready). Here is the last of the Novak collection material. Now this will certainly be my last e-mail offering until late February or maybe even early March.

BRENHAM, Kansas: (Pallasite).
This is actually an etched part slice of a piece that is all iron (common in Seymchan but fairly rare for Brenham). It was cut from a 69kg piece that was found on October 30, 2005. This is a nearly square piece with one natural edge has a nice etch though not as strong (deep) as I’ve seen on some pieces.
74.1 gram etched iron part slice – 50mm x 50mm x 4mm - $125

CAMPO del CIELO, Argentina: Coarse octahedrite (IAB). Found 1576.
The way this one looked when I got it, I almost could believe that the piece was truly found nearly 440 years ago. It was pretty ratty. Actually a bit of wire-brushing is all it really needed. This is clearly one of the “old” Campos but I don’t think it is as bad as many of those turned out to be. Many would completely break apart after awhile. This one merely had surface rust and only a few fragments of any size that came off while cleaning. This certainly is not a specimen for people living in Florida but it is a nice cheap “larger” iron piece (and priced about $60 cheaper than Mr. Novak paid for it years ago).
1428 gram individual – 120mm x 55mm x 50mm - $115

DRONINO, Russia: Ataxite, Ni-poor (ungrouped). Found July 2000. Tkw = around 3000 kilograms.
This is a “natural” (in shape, it has been wire brushed) individual. It had a fairly good layer of rust on it when I got it but it cleaned up easily with wire brushing. One side of this piece is quite smooth and resembles pretty much any other wire-brushed meteorite. The other side though shows a number of fairly large pockets of softer (likely sulfide) material. Not a bad hand specimen as it is now but it should be stored away from moisture as much as possible.
883.1 gram individual – 140mm x 58mm x 25mm - $400

GHUBARA, Oman: (L5). Found 1954.
I know that this is officially labeled as just an L5 but it is really far more interesting than that. Years ago, when I had this material to sell (including this piece, Gordon got it from me) it was discovered that this meteorite consists of fragments of L5 material in an L3 host! But it gets even better. Just recently (within the past few months anyway) I read a paper on Ghubara in Meteoritics and Planetary Science (the technical journal that comes with your Meteoritical Society membership). It now says that Ghubara is a regolith (surface of its parent body) breccia. BUT it is not “just” an ordinary regolith breccia but one that was from the surface of the ORIGINAL L-chondrite parent body. So, this meteorite formed on the surface of the L parent before it got smashed apart (and showered the Earth with a huge number of meteorites) around 500 million years ago. Kind of neat. Kind of wish I had gotten more of this stuff (or sold off less of it) back when it was readily available. This is a wonderful obviously complete individual. It does not really show any fusion crust any more, but it has the complete meteorite rounded shape with the occasional thumbprint.
1495 gram complete individual – 130mm x 90mm x 80mm - SOLD

LIBYAN DESERT GLASS:
This is an “individual” that has one small (10mm x 8mm) end chipped. The remainder is obvious original surfaces. This is not the clearest of specimens (and is priced accordingly). It looks fairly foggy looking at it when it is just sitting on a table but it is interesting when held up to a light. Light passes through it quite nicely. The bubbles in the piece have an obvious layering to them. One end o the piece (the end with a chip) is distinctly more yellow as well.
46.0 gram individual – 50mm x 30mm x 25mm - $70

MOLDAVITE:
This is a really nice little piece that has been mounted (glued with silicone I think) to a small wood display base. The specimen is of very good quality, showing nice shape and surface features. I can’t be sure of the weight exactly, but I am certain that it is 6 grams or a bit over.
About 6 gram individual on wood display base – 30mm x 15mm x 7mm - $45

NANTAN, China: Medium octahedrite (IAB). Found 1958.
Here is a nice fist-sized piece that I can pretty much guarantee won’t rust. That is because this is pretty much already all rust. This is a nice solid piece of the oxide material from this fall. This is like the Canyon Diablo material – a mix of magnetite, hematite and other oxides and hydroxides so there is no metal left to rust further. I am NOT going to cut this open to be sure that that is fully the case in this piece though. This one required absolutely nothing to get it ready for market. It is just as I got it. It has a nice yellow, brown and even some red coloration and is actually a nice “large” display piece.
1069 gram oxide individual – 125mm x 90mm x 55mm - $100

NWA unstudied:
This, in my opinion, was the nicer of the two “large” NWAs Gordon had in his collection. This is quite solid and I can tell it would be quite fresh internally. I may end up cutting it. It looks like it has a couple interesting inclusions showing on the surface so it mighty be pretty interesting internally. This almost looks like it could be an 869 but its not quite exact. Regardless, it is a nice hand specimen. It looks to have something over 50% of its exterior being fusion crust (though much of it is somewhat wind polished). The remainder is secondary crust or old breaks (no fresh breaks on this piece).
876.7 gram individual – 90mm x 80mm x 50mm - $260

SANTA CATHERINA, Brazil: Ni-rich ataxite (ungrouped). Found 1875. Tkw = over 7tons.
I got two pieces of this in the Novak collection. One is an end piece and the other is a complete “individual”. Unfortunately, they are both oxide pieces. But then, I think this is the only way I have ever seen this meteorite available. The outer surfaces of theses are orange/ brown with some darker veining and, the “complete” piece having obvious lighter colored fragments embedded in it. The interior of the cut piece shows a dark gray/ brown magnetite and limonite mix. From the label (that I am putting with the larger piece) and the painted XZZ mark on the end piece, I am pretty certain that Gordon got these from me when I was selling the Tom Palmer collection many years ago.
a) 74.3 gram end piece – 55mm x 35mm x 25mm - $70
b) 119.7 gram “individual” – 55mm x 40mm x 30mm - $100

Baline Reed Meteorites For Sale - List 164 Novak Collection Pt.2

Baline Reed Meteorites For Sale - List 164 Novak Collection Pt.2

Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………………….LIST 164
December 2, 2014

Dear Collectors,

Here is another selection of items from the Novak collection.

BRENHAM, Kansas: (Pallasite). Found 1882.
Here is a ¼ slice that I sold Mr. Novak some years ago. It is a piece that was cut from the 351 pound piece that was found on a hill. The slices I have had from this piece (which were properly prepared by Marlin Cilz using no water) have been very stable. This one supports that. I have done nothing to it and it looks great! This has 2 cut edges and one long natural edge.
83.1 gram part slice – 55mm x 50mm x 6mm - $290

CAMPO del CIELO, Argentina: Coarse octahedrite (IAB). Found 1576.
This is a lightly etched end piece. The interior shows some light staining (most likely from someone as lousy at as me trying to etch the thing and failing to neutralize the acid completely when done). There is some minor small rust spots around the edges but this is nice overall. The back is fully natural in shape but has been wire-brushed. A nice hand specimen that would be great for a pass-around display piece.
359.1 gram end piece – 90mm x 45mm x 20mm - $70

CHINGA, Russia: Ataxite, Ni-rich (ungrouped). Found 1913.
This is a nice complete individual. It has been somewhat wire-brushed but still retains (mostly0 a nice dark brown patina. This has the usual somewhat flattened “lensoidal” shape that most of the meteorites found from this fall have. A nice clean and solid individual.
908. 5 gram individual – 100mm x 60mm x 30mm - $550

DRONINO, Russia: Ataxite Ni-poor (ungrouped). Found July 2000. Tkw = around 3000 kilograms.
This piece was somewhat surprising. I would expect a slice of this common to rust meteorite completely fall apart. However, this actually in really great shape when I got it. There was a little bit of rusting around the edges (this is a complete slice) but that was it! I am not sure what this was coated with originally. It seemed like some kind of wax – kind of sticky/ slimy. I stripped it of and re-coated the thing. This shows bright polished metal on one side and deeply etched (only bringing out a granular texture) on the other. Both sides show lots of the elongate sulphide inclusions common in this meteorite.
132.0 gram complete slice – 130mm x 30mm x 4mm - $130

GOLD BASIN, Arizona: (L4). Found November 1995. Tkw = over 127 kilograms.
Here are three pieces Gordon had in his collection. The smallest is an end piece and still shows a nice fresh interior. The smaller fragment does appear to be just a fragment (no real crust that I can see) but is all original old surfaces (no fresh breaks), The 238g piece is quite nice. The exterior is all old natural. Much of it is old secondary or fractured surfaces but the top (nearly 50% of the stone) still shows obvious fusion crust.
a) 28.7 gram end piece – 30mm x 30mm x 15mm - $35
b) 39.7 gram fragment (all natural) – 37mm x 35mm x 13mm - $50
c) 238.5 gram individual – 70mm x 55mm x 40mm - $235
d) a large one I had from earlier at a much lower price; 1483 gram individual/ fragment as found - $1100.00. This is the largest I have ever had and is likely close to the largest ever found. The largest reported in the Bulletin is 1520 grams.

NANTAN, China: Medium octahedrite (IAB). Found 1958.
This came with no label. Looking it over though, its colors, surface features and the shiny in areas (like it has been coated with lacquer at one time) tell me it is a Nantan. This surprises me a bit as this piece is quite solid and only needed the lightest of wire-brushing to bring it to top form. It is rare, but there are indeed stable pieces of Nantan that are not just oxide. This appears to be one of them. It may have some oxides yet in some of the deeper recesses (where a wire brush won’t reach) but it is actual iron overall. This is a nice hand specimen and could easily be mistaken for a Canyon Diablo or such.
676 gram iron individual – 70mm x 70mm x 40mm - $100

SHIROKOVSKY, Russia: Fake pallasite.
I vividly remember when this stuff acme out. I lost quite a bit of money on it (as many of us did). It first appeared priced at around $50/g. I did not buy any – too expensive. I was also hesitant as the metal had a man-made granular look to it to me. Regardless, I ended up taking some to sell on consignment (after I was shown the “official” research reports that clearly said this was indeed a meteorite). Dumb. I ended up refunding everybody’s money (and only got partial refund from the seller). None the less, most collectors LIKE being able to have/ show a good counterfeit, as long as they know/ pay for what they are really getting. Once we figured out that this was fake, I tried to get the folks handling this to make/ prepare more of it in mostly thicker slices for cabechons/ lapidary material (I am sure it would sell well, if priced for what it IS not as a “rare” meteorite). No luck there, unfortunately. This is (was) a super thin 4 gram slice. It was already broken when I got the collection in Denver, but I have managed to finish the job in bringing all of this stuff home (should have put it in its own box). Anyway, it is a bag of small (one up to 2cm x 3cm) slices that would be great for the micro seller. These come with 3 different cards; one info card, one hand-written label and the card, apparently, of the original seller.
4.0 grams of slices - $20

TOLUCA, Mexico: Coarse octahedrite. Found 1776.
This one was needing some work when I got it. I went to knocking off the obvious loose fragments and then started to wire-brush the piece. Thankfully I was paying attention. As a rolled the thing over I noticed that I came fairly close to removing a museum number that I had not noticed on my initial inspection of the piece. It turns out that this specimen is a Monig piece! It has a very clear M8.33 painted on it (this likely would have been put on this piece buy Glenn and Margaret Huss when they cataloged the Monig collection. This, unfortunately, does not have a matching Monig label. It does have a Mark Bostic Collection label though. This has the weight as 482 grams, so it seems I only lost a couple grams in cleaning this piece.
479.9 gram Monig labeled individual – 90mm x 45mm x 35mm - $400

Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale- List 163- Novak collection pieces 1

Blaine Reed Meteorites For Sale- List 163- Novak collection pieces 1

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

--------------------------------------

NWA unstudied:
930 gram oriented individual
"click on image to enlarge"

NWA unstudied:
930 gram oriented individual

NWA unstudied:
930 gram oriented individual

NWA unstudied:
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