Yahoo! News is reporting that a couple of large meteorites up for auction were withdrawn because the bidding didn’t go high enough.
A 30-pound chunk of the Willamette Meteorite which fell in Oregon a few thousand years ago only got up to $300k in the auction, and they were hoping for $1.3 million. I am not an expert, but that strikes me as a tad high. 30 pounds is 13,600 grams, and hoping for $100/gram is, IMO, insane. It’s a beautiful piece, to be sure, but they probably should have taken the $300,000.
The other meteorite was the Brenham meteorite, which fell in Kansas and was dug up a couple of years ago. It’s a Pallasite, which is a relatively rare and beautiful type of meteorite (it’s my fave, actually), and it only got a top bid of $200,000, a third of what was hoped.
I’m sure eventually they’ll sell the pieces; collectors of such high-end pieces may not be interested in bidding at public auctions. I don’t mind bidding on small pieces; I have a couple of dozen meteorites I’ve picked up here and there (they are so cool!); maybe someday I’ll be able to get a few really nice pieces.
But $100k+? Heh. Dream on.
October 29th, 2007 at 5:47 pm
Yes, it was bonhams.com N.Y. auctioneers. The illustrated catalogue is online in Sales Results (online catalogue) and well worth a read.
I think that a whole Statue of David is worth more than all the little bits added together, if smashed to pieces. What I mean is that the beauty of a large fragment, like some of the larger Sikhote-Alin pieces scale faster than mass.
But I get your point BA, an awful lot of money for something that fell out of the sky, despite the fact that if I had the spending power of a king, i’d have been on the front row, waving like mad!
October 29th, 2007 at 8:51 pm
(crickets)
It’s so quiet over here.
(crickets)
Everyone is over at the Bush And the Neocons Am Teh Nazis thread.
(crickets)
I like it over here.
(crickets)
Very relaxing.
(crickets)
BTW, I’m posting from a radio telescope again.
(crickets)
Some of us occasioanlly work at one instead of just having our pictures taken near one.
(crickets)
I tease.
(crickets)
Waitress? A martini, please.
(crickets)
And I mean a GIN martini! None of that vodka martini crap.
(crickets)
Vodka martini. Feh. That’s Ian Fleming fault, that is.
(crickets)
Oh, and some nachos and a foot massage.
(crickets)
Aaahhhh…
October 29th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
Funny post, QD!
I bought a small meteorite 20 years ago here in Charlottesville. The label said “Mexico”. A few years later I read that fake meteorites were being made in, you guessed it, Mexico.
Bummer.
Rich
October 29th, 2007 at 9:33 pm
I can’t help but conjure up an image of the Pet Rock.
I’m sure it’s cool to own some meteorite chunks… but seriously, can’t $300k (or IPU forbid, a million) be better spent elsewhere?
October 29th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Richard, it might yet be real. There are meteorites from Mexico, including some very cool ones. The geology/natural science department at UVa might have someone who would know.
October 29th, 2007 at 10:22 pm
Phil said, “There are meteorites from Mexico,”
Really? I thought they came from space!
(rimshot)
I’m sorry. I’m jet lagged.
October 30th, 2007 at 12:21 am
QD is right. It’s nice having a thread to ourselves for a change.
About 10 years ago I worked with an EE whose hobby was making jewelry. He was also an amateur rock hound (I don’t want to say geologist; he wasn’t after the whole earth, just surface rocks). At some point he got an inspiration for an interesting type of novelty jewelery…meteorite rings!
He bought a small nickel-iron meteorite, only a pound or so, and a couple of tektites. He melted the metal for the band and cut and polished the tektite for the stone. When polished, the metal looks like platinum and the stone like onyx. The only problem is that it rusts! Even with a free polishing cloth with each one (with an image of a meteor streaking through the sky) he felt this was a show stopper and never sold any.
When he told me about this, I begged him to sell me one. It took several days of nagging him, but he finally caved and sold one to me for $60. I would have paid five times that. He warned me continuously that “it’s gonna rust!” but I didn’t care. It’s spectacular to own something made from the heavens that you can wear! He felt so guilty about selling me a “defective” product that he threw in what was left of the two tektites.
I wear it on special occasions. It doesn’t really “rust”, just gets a sort of gray/green layer on it that comes off easily with my Dremel polish wheel. I have a great time asking people to guess what precious metal it’s made from. Precious in this case is from circumstance, not the intrinsic value. What makes it even more interesting is that it smells like a rusty bolt
Sadly, he died about five years ago after retiring up to the California gold country where he was trying for that big strike (another hobby).
No, the ring is not for sale, myyy preciiioussss.
- Jack
October 30th, 2007 at 12:29 am
I’m really starting to get this astronomy thing. Comets are designed in California but made in China and meteorites are made in Mexico.
October 30th, 2007 at 2:30 am
[…] Read the rest of this great post here […]
October 30th, 2007 at 2:58 am
One of my favorite meteorites is the big iron monster sitting on exhibit in the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites, Museum of Natural History, NYC. The story goes it was found sitting on the surface in Greenland with no crater.
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/meteorites/
It’s probably worth a lot.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:05 am
Well, a “local” meteorite sold at that auction for $1673, which is probably quite reasonable for someone with a few bucks to spare. Heck, it even came with pieces of the car taillight that it hit.
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007710290404
[quote]The Peekskill meteorite, famous not only for its great aim through the taillight panel of a car owned by Michelle Knapp, who was only 18 at the time, but for the fact that its fiery streak across the northeast sky was captured on 16 camcorders, went for a few hundred dollars less than the suggested bidding range of $2,000 to $3,000 at Bonhams in Manhattan.[/quote]
October 30th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Ah, the joys of capitalism. “I got this rock what fell from outer space! I’ll give it to you for an inordinate sum of money!”
>> One of my favorite meteorites is the big iron monster sitting on exhibit in the Arthur Ross Hall of Meteorites
Heh, the one they acquired from the natives? The story behind that one’s pretty cool… though one has to wonder where the natives got the iron for their tools after that.
October 30th, 2007 at 8:15 am
(Re: Chip)
I went to the American Museum of Natural History numerous times when I was a kid. I tried to take my own kids there this summer, but it was a cold rainy day, and apparently all of NYC decided to visit the museum as well, so we never even found a place to park.
However, I do recall that the meteorite is so heavy that they built the building around it, after building a platform for it. I’ve seen pictures of the horse-drawn wagon that carted it through New York’s streets on its way to the museum. (I forget how many horses it took.)
Well, I can’t find that info, but there’s the museum’s page on the meteorite:
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/permanent/meteorites/what/ahnighito.php
October 30th, 2007 at 8:58 am
Ah yes. I visited the Ross Hall for the first time last year. I was thoroughly impressed with the collection of meteorites, and especially with the massive one in the center of the gallery. I’d never before seen one that large in person.
I go to Chicago a couple of times a year. The Field Museum has a decent collection of meteorites, including the one that crashed through a garage roof and a Model-T Ford, finally punching a hole in the seat cushion. (They have the cushion and a section of the roof, with the hole, there alongside the meteorite.)
They also have a pretty good-sized specimen (perhaps half a meter across) out on a pedestal for visitors to put their hands on. It has a strong magnetic field, so there are large paper clips on it for people to play with.
October 30th, 2007 at 11:12 am
Meteors that became Earth over four billion years ago; worthless.
Meteors that fell to Earth more recently; priceless (well, expensive anyway).
I mean, isn’t Earth just a conglomeration of space rocks that were floating around the protosun? And now we pay top dollar for stragglers?
October 30th, 2007 at 3:45 pm
>> I mean, isn’t Earth just a conglomeration of space rocks that were floating around the protosun? And now we pay top dollar for stragglers?
Shush, comrade. Didn’t they ever teach you that homo economicus doesn’t exist?