Blaine Reed
P.O. Box 1141
Delta, CO 81416
Phone/fax (970) 874-1487
…………………………………………………..LIST 174
May 19, 2015
Dear collectors,
I hadn’t planned on having a list this week as I was supposed to be in Phoenix running a “garage” sale for my uncle in Cave Creek (so he can move to a smaller place on the other side of town). That has gotten delayed for several reasons so I am home this week after all.
Anyway, I picked up (and re-discovered) some really neat irons for this offering. All of these have something special about them. This list is a little bigger than usual I admit. However, I figured that this partly makes up for the fact that it is very unlikely that I’ll have an offering at all in early June.
BOTTLE OPENERS: “natural” meteorites that work as bottle openers.
I bought a Canyon Diablo (for a quite high price at the time) that works well as a bottle opener close to 30 years ago. I use it often at shows. Every time I use it, people want to buy it. Nope, still keeping that one (though these seem to work even a bit better, perhaps). One of these is a sand-blasted Canyon Diablo that I had out for sale in Tucson (for $1/g). Someone pointed out that it looked like it might work well as a bottle opener. A little “testing” showed it indeed did. I set it aside and forgot I had it until recently discovering a Gebel Kamil (Natural exterior) that looked like it might work as well to remind me. To be honest, these don’t work best (but they do still work) if you just go at a bottle the way you’d first think (even my old Diablo is this way – you hold it at an angle to the cap, not straight on and it works great). So, I bought a couple 6-packs and experimented over a few days (Blake helped as well). It turns out that with a little practice (buy something you enjoy drinking for practice) these work great. I have marked each with a white spot that shows the edge(s) that you should place under the edge of the bottle cap for the most effective use that I found (your experimentation may show that another angle may ultimately be better). So, buy your bottle opener today and enjoy this summer’s beverages in a semi-unique way.
a) Canyon Diablo, Arizona: 185.5 grams – 70mm x 35mm x 18mm - $170
b) Gebel Kamil, Egypt: 493.2 grams – 100mm x 60mm x 28mm - $350
CANYON DIABLO, Arizona: Coarse octahedrite (IAB). Found 1891.
Here are three specimens (actually 4 as one “specimen” here actually contains two pieces) that are truly top-notch pieces for this famous meteorite. Two of these (well three actually) are really nice sculpted pieces with thumb-printed shapes and sharp edges. The middle sized one has the more usual rounded edges but is also nicely sculpted. As an added bonus, this one has a large hole through the center of it.
a) 393.1 gram sculpted individual – 65mm x 55mm x 28mm - $350
This is one of the nicest pieces of Canyon Diablo I have had in years this size. It has a great thumb-printed sharp edged shape. It has also been highly brushed. Frankly, this piece would be VERY easy to mistake for a nice small Gibeon individual.
b) 589.1 gram individual with large hole – 55mm x 50mm x 50mm - $700
This piece has a nice sculpted shape, though its edges are rounded. The piece’s best feature though is a large hole (roughly 12mm x 5mm at its smallest) deep through the center of it. I have seen plenty of pieces that have a hole near an edge/ through a thin spot on the specimen. However, this piece is very blocky (no real thin edges) and the hole is basically through the center. It starts out as large deep pits on either side of the specimen. It was the process of cleaning (removing caliche, dirt, etc.) that eventually showed that these “surface pits” were actually connected by a hole deep in the center of the specimen. Great piece (I have photos ready to send out) and the first Diablo I have had in many, many years that has a hole.
c) Canyon Diablo “Meteor Crater” display.
Here is a really well done desk display set. It consists of two really nice Canyon Diablo meteorites in a plexiglass box. Both meteorites are nice, but the largest is superb. The small specimen is a long, thin sculpted piece of 9.5 grams (37mm x 13mm x 4mm) that has been left natural. The larger is a fantastic long thumb-printed/ sharp edged piece weighing 940 grams (140mm x 55mm x 25mm) that has been lightly brushed. Both of these would be very easy to mistake for a nice Gibeon individual. In fact, when I first received pictures of these pieces, that is exactly what I thought they were. However, something even more special about the large piece showed the truth of their origin. It turns out that upon inspection, the large piece has a Monig number painted on it. It is a little beat up but it can still be clearly made out as M13.9. Looking up Canyon Diablo in the Monig collection books clearly shows that Canyon Diablo was M13 in his collection. I don’t recall ever having a Monig Diablo before so I suspect that these are fairly rare. Anyway, both of these pieces are housed in a heavy plexiglass display box (lid easily lifts off) that someone has made with a very natural looking ground surface (kind of looks like the dirt in the Meteor Crater area). There are cut out areas (recessed) that have information about the meteorites (including small area under each noting its weight). A really cool item (photos ready to send).
Canyon Diablo Display with two specimens - $1500
GEBEL KAMIL, Egypt. Ni-rich ataxite. Found 2008.
I know, I have offered pieces of this a couple times in the past (usually at a somewhat higher price). However, these have a special feature that I have only seen on a few other pieces of this meteorite – slaggy melt glass patches. I know, meteorites do NOT come down hot (despite what bad Sci-Fi films have the general public believing). However, these particular pieces clearly were very hot when they hit the desert sand. Each of these has a patch (usually small but my smallest specimen has the biggest patch, oddly) of black (with white clasts) bubbly glass that was formed from some of the desert sand and rocks melting when they came into contact with these obviously very hot meteorites during the impact. On the listings below, the first measurements are the rough overall size of the specimen and the second (after the price) is the rough area of obvious melt glass. I have tried to price these at (or below), for the most part, of what usual specimens of this meteorite typically sell for (I got a fairly good deal on a bag of pieces). These all are basically natural but have been air/ soda-blasted to remove loose dirt.
1) Natural individuals: All showing some attached melted sand blobs.
a) 66.8 grams – 50mm x 30mm x 12mm - $70 – melt glass 20mm x 6mm.
b) 100.4 grams – 63mm x 34mm x 12mm - $75- melt glass area 4mm x 3mm.
c) 191.4 grams – 85mm x 45mm x 20mm - $140 – melt glass area 4mm x 3mm plus smaller patches.
d) 278.7 grams – 90mm x 45mm x 20mm - $200 – melt glass area 13mm x 5mm.
e) 576.7 grams – 110mm x 50mm x 28mm - $400 – melt area 6mm x 5mm and really vesiculated.
