Blaine Reed Meteorites -List 129 - some interesting larger items
Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Ph/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………………………LIST 129
November 20, 2012
Dear Collectors,
Here are a few items I have picked up at the past couple shows. These things are more tektites and miscellaneous special or large pieces than meteorites this time. I listed the meteorites first, but there are certainly interesting things below.
A holiday season note, request for help or opinion:
I had hoped to pull together some kind of gift certificate system by now. Frankly, the holiday season is generally one of my slowest. This is because collectors are using their money to buy gifts for family and friends (not meteorites) and family and friends don't often buy meteorites for their collector friends (can't blame them – they usually have no idea what those collectors want or need so the don't risk buying any meteorite specimens). I thought that a gift certificate program on my part might help break up that log jam (then family and friends of collectors could simply buy a gift certificate from me which the collector could then use to turn into meteorites/ tektites and such from me later). Unfortunately, in our highly over regulated supposedly free economy, it seems that I may not legally be able to do this. It seems that the government (both state and Fed) has gotten into regulating gift certificates, balances on them and collecting taxes fees and such. I do understand that I certainly should pay taxes on any sale of gift certificates I make BUT it seems that they want additional taxes and demand that I turn over unused balances to them after a certain amount of time. I don't know the specific rules (and whether or not they would fully apply to what tiny amount of business I would do in these things) but I was informed by another dealer who looked into it a few years ago to simply DON'T DO IT. If anyone out there has a better understanding of the rules on these things PLEASE CONTACT ME. Maybe I can find a loop-hole that will allow me to offer gift certificates in the future. I suppose I should first ask though if anyone out there thinks that having such available would be of any use or help to them (no sense getting all worked up over legal details if really no one wants the things to begin with).
SEYMCHAN, Russia: (Pallasite).
Here is a really nice bookend of true pallasite (loaded with olivine). Its profile is square (all cut edges) but the back is natural exterior (so its kind of an end piece). This stands up nicely on its own. I have this priced a bit below what it would likely cost to replace it at this point (probably around $1500 or so from what I saw at the Denver show). I'd rather try to sell this nice piece as it is before possibly sending it off for cutting.
368.9 gram book end – 72mm x 70mm x 20mm - $1250
TAZA – NWA (859) : Plessitic octahedrite (real one).
I got this piece in Denver incase I needed to have a decent piece to hand around (or run an XRF on in front of) the jury at last month's trial. I did not end up needing to do either (but I guess there is indeed still a chance the clown will be awarded a new trial though). I managed to pick a nice oriented `bullet' shaped individual. It has a nice rounded nose and slowly tapers out from there. There are some thumbprints on and near the back of the piece. This is a mottled rust brown as I have left this just as I got it (which looks to be pretty much as it was likely found).
245.2 gram oriented individual as found – 60mm x 30mm x 25mm - $650
ANORTHOSITE: Isle of Harris, Scotland, UK
Here is an end piece of terrestrial anorthosite. Like its Lunar counterpart, this is nearly white in color (though there is a greenish tinge on one side of the cut and polished face). This is the cheap way to see what the material that originally made up much of the luinar highlands looked like before impact mixing and such. The paper that comes with this gives the location as Lingerbay, Isle of Harris, Scotland, UK.
58.4 gram cut fragment – 65mm x 30mm x 20mm - $20
AUSTRALITE: Kalgoorlie, Western Australia.
Here is, by far, the largest Australite I have ever had. I can't recall having any in the past 26 years that were much bigger than 12 grams or so. This is a positively huge one in comparison to all I have had in the past. This is a complete individual as found. It is not real exciting in shape or features – a slightly squashed egg shaped piece with fairly shallow grooving and flow lines. The real special feature of this piece is indeed its truly rare (and unchipped no less) size.
43.8 gram individual – 45mm x 30mm x 20mm - $400
JOSEPHENITE, Oregon: Terrestrial Fe/Ni alloy.
This is a little individual nugget of this interesting and quite rare material. It is believed that this may have been brought up from the outer core with a very deep origin magma plume. These are often found as placer nuggets in streams after they have weathered out of the rock they were originally trapped in. This is a typical rounded little nugget.
2.6 gram nugget – 12mm x 10mm x 5mm - $15
TEKTITE KIT:
Here is a neat item I got from Al Mitterling at the Denver show. It is a Riker box with 5 different tektites/ impact glasses. The pieces in this are no slouches for size or quality either. I suppose the Australite could be a bit bigger (see above) but it certainly is the size of what is usually available. The items (and weights) are: Australite – 2.1g, Darwin Glass – 8.7g, Indochinite – 12.5g, Libyan Desert Glass – 14.6g, Moldavite – 8.6g.
Tektite kit in Riker - $120
WABAR IMPACTITE/ CRATER GLASS, Saudi Arabia.
I have only seen small bits of impact glass from this crater over the years. Usually, I see the small impact pearls (little half centimeter or so glass beads) that the owners generally want waaaay too much money for (last I was offered they wanted $300 to $500 for each pearl). There is a lot of those pearls and impactites out there in the desert but VERY few people have ever been allowed out to the crater (and are often monitored when they are there). I have heard that large sand dunes are moving into the area and are about to (if they have not already) cover the area for what will likely be a long time. Anyway, what I have here is truly a HUGE piece of crater glass/ impactite from this crater. I picked it up in Socorro a couple weeks ago. It came from a retired geologist who did work in Saudi Arabia many years ago. I am not certain exactly how to classify this chunk. It has the highly frothy nature (and metal blebs) of an impactite but has kind of a lava like flow structure to it as well. NOTE – I certainly did test this – it indeed has plenty of nickel in it so it certainly is NOT just a piece of lava. I also am not sure how to price this, perhaps its an item that is unique enough that it would be better in an auction. I decided to price (per gram wise) about the same that my other impactites are. However, this has a lot of grams to it so it still works out to be a substantial chunk of money.
209gram natural fragment as found – 140mm x 75mm x 45mm - $400
THIN-SECTION:
Here is, unfortunately, a broken thin-section I have had sitting on my desk for years now (it got broken in shipping, not from sitting on my desk surprisingly). It was from my NWA (5779) LL5 breccia that finally got reported recently (hence my ability to now get rid of this thing). It is broken into 5 pieces but there are certainly a couple big enough to still enjoy under a scope.
Broken t-section - $5
