[meteorite-list] Morocco Trip and Meeting

[Greg Hupe]

Dear list members,

As promised, here is a quick report from our last Morocco trip and a couple 
photos.

This last trip was a very trying one that included many mishaps such as lost 
luggage to and from Morocco, luckily everything eventually arrived here (at 
4:30 in the morning after only two hours of sleep in nearly three days!). 
There were some other accidents that I will leave out of respect to our 
Moroccan partner's requests, but lets just say that he will be a little more 
careful next time.

Unlike the last trip, there were no police roundups due to competitive 
dealer games. Instead, we managed to gather a good many of the Moroccan 
dealers in one spot, Aziz Habibi's hotel of all places! This turned into a 
mini "Moroccan Meteorite Summit", as I like to call it. During this 
gathering we managed to discuss actions that may be taken to finalize some 
older "problems". We also talked about the Moroccan meteorite market in its 
current and future state.

As all of you can see there has been a flood of rare material lately but a 
slow down overall. In my opinion, the Moroccan material is slowing fairly 
quickly and will not last much more than a few years at best. There is a 
noticeable slowdown from only a year ago. A lot of the rare material that 
was held back is now materializing and making it to all of our collections. 
This tells me that the slowdown has ramped up speed and it is only a matter 
of time until a slow drizzle will come out. Other indicators are the 
distances some of these dealers are traveling to acquire new material. In 
short, far into neighboring countries. I feel the meeting was a step in the 
right direction and hopefully we can all start working together in a more 
positive manner.

Photo of several attending dealers (several chose NOT to be photographed and 
are not in picture)
http://www.lunarrock.com/moroccomeeting/summit1.jpg
Greg back, right. Habibi back, left with red shirt collar

Photo of Habibi (left) talking to an unexpecting Adam on his cell phone
http://www.lunarrock.com/moroccomeeting/summit2.jpg

After cutting a couple of select stones I brought back, I can say that we 
will be offering some very nice classified material in the near future.

Best regards,

Greg and Adam Hupe
The Hupe Collection
Team LunarRock
naturesvault (eBay)
meteoritelab
gmhupe at tampabay.rr.com
IMCA 2185