[meteorite-list] Hidden Treasure

thetoprok at aol.com thetoprok at aol.com
Sun May 29 10:39:43 EDT 2005



Good Morning List, Dean,

A few monthes ago my brother and I made the short drive to Dean Besseys 
'cross the river, where we spent all our pennies on different treasures 
of the world, stockpiled in Deans humble apartment. It was great, lots 
of meteorites, fossils, old coins, a lap machine for polishing, we were 
definately like two kids in a candy store! We bought the lap machine as 
well as some examples of the items mentioned above. After haveing the 
lap machine at home for a while I was polishing some slices when one of 
them got away and was lodged under the lap wheel where I could not 
reach it. I had to tip it on its side to get the slice to fall out, and 
when I did this there was a little surprise. A 3.72 gram end cut of an 
unidentified meteorite was hiding under the lap wheel! Obviously a left 
over remnant from another persons day of meteorite labors. Was it 
Deans? Or did he leave it there for me as a freebie to be found at a 
later date just because he's a nice guy? Or did it belong to the guy 
that he bought the machine from? What kind of meteorite is it? Am I the 
rightful owner of this small treasure? Or do I need to do the right 
thing and see if Dean wants it back?
Of course he can have it back if he wants,(small polishing fee of 
$45.00 of course) but is this a good case for "Finders keepers?!" Would 
it be different if the slice was lunar vs. an OC? I'm offering it back 
to him of course, but what would you do? What if you found a slice of 
an anomolous martian hiding in there? Just a friendly survey!

I haven't told Dean, I thought I would have some fun with it first!

I need some help identifying it. It's a really cool stone, not quite 
like any I'm familiar with. There is hardly any attraction to a magnet, 
what little metal there is, is in round beads. There are some very well 
defined chondrules and some blown out ones, and there is a really odd 
inclusion that I would like some opinions on. It's a sort of yellow 
gold color with black stripes, you'll know which one when you see it.

 http://community.webshots.com/album/354985092HCtnUp

Also,
I was asked to write a Franconia field report for the IMCA website. I 
want to thank Ken Newton for putting it together so well, excellent job 
Ken!

 It can be viewed here;

http://imca.repetti.net/metinfo/fieldreports.html

Rock On!
Larry





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