P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
October 19, 2011
……………………………………………………LIST 111
Dear Collectors,
Here is the E-mail version of my just mailed paper list offering.
This is my 25th anniversary list! It was October of 1986 that my first ad came out in Rock and Gem and I sent out my first catalogs. My first actual order was late in the month and went out to a collector in Erie, PA. It sometimes seems like it has been a loooong time, but usually it feels more like I started just last year.
Socorro, New Mexico Mineral Symposium. I will be gone November 9th - 16th. The "informal tail-gating" (specimen sales) will be at the Comfort Inn at the very North end of town (1259 Frontage Rd NW). I should be in room 119. I should be set up and open by 2PM on Friday Nov 11th and open again about 6PM Saturday (generally open until 11 or so each night). I will also likely be open much of Sunday as well - not putting things away until around 4PM or so that day.
As usual lately: I am very busy with several projects that will have me out of the house periodically. Please leave a message if you don't reach me. I will get back to you when I get back in.
MUONIONALUSTA, Sweden: Fine octahedrite (IVA). Found 1906. Tkw = 1000+ kilograms.
I am a little bit scared to offer this one. I have heard it called MuonionaRUSTA. This is beautiful stuff though. It has a fantastic etch (sharper and better, by far, than most Gibeon) but does sometimes have a problem with developing rust lines. These pieces were supposedly cut in oil and etched in alcohol, so they are supposed to be much more stable than most. I have had these for 8 months and they are indeed holding up well, and we have been very rainy here this summer.
1) Etched part slices:
a) 8.2 grams - 25mm x 11mm x 4mm - $15
b) 17.1 grams - 29mm x 26mm x 3mm - $30
c) 26.9 grams - 30mm x 28mm x 5mm - $45
DHOFAR 1576, Oman: (L5). Found March 10, 2009. Tkw = 7.7 kilograms.
The current total known weight on this might be substantially less for the time being. I got a little over 2kg of this and was told that the remainder may have been "lost in the shuffle" (misplaced, lost its labeling or accidentally got mixed in with other similar-looking unstudied material perhaps). Anyway, this is indeed the "Right Stuff". This was recovered as a single large stone that had weathered apart into many pieces. I suspect that this original stone may have been oriented to some degree, as quite a number of these pieces show some patches of incredibly thick, somewhat bubbly crust. This is, internally, pretty typical for a weathered low shock level (S2) L-chondrite.
1) Cut fragments:
a) 8.1 grams - 26mm x 15mm x 12mm - $10
b) 14.3 grams - 38mm x 17mm x 15mm - $17
c) 28.0 grams - 44mm x 27mm x 15mm - $31
d) 42.4 grams - 54mm x 33mm x 12mm - $45
e) 106.1 grams - 82mm x 48mm x 20mm - $100
f) 231.4 grams - 85mm x 58mm x 22mm - $205 – most of back covered by thin crust.
NWA 5783: (LL6). Found before February 2008. Tkw = 524.2 grams.
I got five fairly fresh looking stones with really low magnetic attraction at the Tucson show some years ago and set them aside. Cutting one of the stones revealed that these were a nice, fresh LL6 with a good breccia texture (this has gray clasts in a light greenish-gray matrix internally). I decided to offer the remaining stones as complete individuals for now as these are indeed distinctly complete individuals (I may cut up what does not sell and offer slices on a later list). I do have many collectors that want only complete stones of various types, and LL6 is not the easiest to come by. These do show a moderate level of wind-polishing and weathering effects, but the crust is still quite dark and thick in most areas (with much of the crust on the larger pieces showing nice contraction cracks). Note for E-Mail offering; I rapidly sold the smaller ones and cut the 109g piece, so now there is an end piece available. This does have a little bit of light browning on the edges but is a very nice specimen with really nice crust covering the back.
1) Complete individuals as found:
a) 198.8 grams - 55mm x 43mm x 38mm - $600
2) End piece:
a) 54.8 grams – 50mm x 43mm x 18mm - $190
ORGUEIL, France: (CI1), carbonaceous chondrite. Fell May 14, 1864. Tkw = 11 kilograms.
This is the closest to comet material we as collectors have in our collections (I doubt we'll ever get access to some of the tiny grains they brought back from comet 81P/Wild 2 in the Stardust mission). This is very close to solar abundance in most elements and is the most "primitive" meteorite type known. This has had a lot of water flow though it in its past. I recently saw a very interesting article explaining that there may really be fossils in this material! Some of the evidence was along the lines of
the microbes that were fossilized were of a type that live underwater (we all know that this material would have turned to mud if it spent any time underwater after arriving on Earth) and the isotopic compositions of the `fossil" structures appeared to be non-terrestrial. I have not heard any more on this, but it is truly fascinating to think about none the less. What I have is crumbs (no surprise there), generally from small up to 4 or 5mm in size in a capsule or glass vial
1) Crumbs/ fragments in capsule/vial:
a) .05 grams - about 4mm diameter x 2.5mm deep in capsule - $125
b) .10 grams – about 4mm diameter x 5mm deep in capsule - $240
c) .25 grams – about 4mm diameter x 9mm deep in capsule - $575
d) .50 grams – 5mm diameter x 20mm glass vial filled - $1100
e) 1.0 grams – 11mm diameter x 9mm deep in glass vial - $2000
NWA 6888: Rio de Oro, Western Sahara: (Lunar meteorite). Found May 28, 2011, Tkw = 208 grams.
Here is a BRAND NEW Moon rock! This just got done with the research work, and it turned out to be really interesting! I have heard the term "collection in a slice" before, but it really applies to this stuff. This stone is classified as a "Polymict melt matrix breccia and is composed of many different mineral and rock type clasts (including granulites, anorthosites, gabbro, gabbro-norite, troctolites and VLT-like basalts) set in a devitrified glass matrix. This one meteorite seems to have a bit of pretty much all the different types of Lunar materials. The single "I've got some of that type Moon rock" Lunar specimen!
1) Slices:
a) .06 grams - 7mm x 4mm x 1mm - $65
b) .11 grams - 8mm x 6mm x 1mm - $120
c) .18 grams - 10mm x 9mm x 1mm - $195
d) .37 grams - 14mm x 10mm x 1mm - $390
e) .90 grams - 19mm x 18mm x 1mm - $900
f) 3.09 grams - 57mm x 22mm x 1mm - $2935 – complete slice.
2) End piece:
a) .13 grams – 10mm x 5mm x 2mm - $140
SEYMCHAN, Russia: (Pallasite). Found 1967. Tkw = tons, but very little true pallasite material known.
I got a few more pieces of the intensely pallasitic stuff at the Denver Spring Show and had it cut thinner. I couldn't recall if I have ever offered this material. I have offered the material with large crystals before, but I don't believe I have offered this really fine-grained material. Anyway, these have a high content of angular olivine sized from really tiny up to 5 or 6mm. These are neat pieces in that even a small specimen shows the pallasitic texture of a large slice (I often offer these to jewelers as even cabs for rings still show a good olivine/ metal mix).
1) Slices:
a) 3.3 grams - 19mm x 17mm x 2mm - $40
b) 6.6 grams - 31mm x 22mm x 2mm - $80
c) 9.8 grams - 28mm x 28mm x 3mm - $115
d) 14.2 grams - 43mm x 35mm x 2mm - $165
e) 21.0 grams - 70mm x 35mm x 2mm - $240
f) 36.7 grams - 52mm x 50mm x 3mm - $400 – lots of large crystals/ light transmittance!
2) Fantastic 6.7kg intensely pallasitic end piece – 230mm x 140mm x 120mm - $12,500 – I'd love to keep this one as my representative pallasite end piece if I had the cash (this is consigned).
DARWIN GLASS, Australia; impact glass.
I thought I was pretty much out of this material, but recently located another small bag I had set aside from long ago (probably 15 or 20 years). These are the usual dark greenish/gray irregular blobs of rough glass from the roughly 700k year old, 1 Km diameter Mount Darwin Crater in Tasmania.. Most show interesting stretch and or flow structure (I think this was a bag of the "good stuff", or at least the "better stuff").
1) Individuals/ fragments as found: Price = $2.50/g
Sizes available: 2.0g, 4.2g, 6.4g, 9.0g, 11.5g,
STONE (chondrite) METEORITE PENDANT/BEADS:
These are some really neat hand-made "beads" that I picked up in Denver. I have 2 styles – disks and hearts. They have a hole in them near their respective "tops" (near one edge of the disk and just below the V of the heart) for running a loop through for hanging on a chain. These would make a great Christmas present, so I decided to offer them now.
1) Disk shaped pendant bead: roughly 35mm diameter, 5mm thick (roughly 15 to 20 grams) - $20.00 each
2) Heart shaped pendant bead: Roughly 40mm tall x 35mm wide, 5mm thick (roughly 20 to 30 grams) - $25.00 each
Please include postage: a couple dollars on small U.S. orders and $10 on large items for first class (insurance is extra, if desired). On small overseas orders, $3 to $5 is generally plenty (I'll have to custom figure the rate for large items). Registration is also recommended on more valuable overseas shipments - an extra $12.00.
If you are sending a fax, simply begin transmitting when my line is answered. My fax will turn on automatically to receive (or I will start it if I answer) when you begin transmitting.
