[meteorite-list] Fusion Crust on Irons

[star-bits at tx.rr.com]

<And if I look back - most Russian suppliers always sold extremely cleaned 
Sikhotes, brushed, tmbled, etched and grinded down until the iron was a 
shiny silver. I never liked that style, but I observed, as Sikhote-Alin was 
always the first choice of non-meteoriticistical buyers, that they got 
higher prices than nicer, not so radically cleaned Sikhotes, because the 
laymen thought, that it would be a spot of bother, if there would be dark 
spots or even spots of rust left.>

I have bought a lot of sikhote-alin shrapnel over the last couple years.  My main supplier had shrapnel that ran the gamut from silver through dirty brown to black.   I asked for an explanation of what the difference was in the preparation they did with the items.  All of them were tumbled, the dirty brown were tumbled the least mostly to get the dirt and other crud off them.   If tumbled for a longer period the brown wears away to a black under coating and tumbled even longer the black wears away to a silver color.   The only other thing he does to them is soak them in mineral oil.   I doubt that the cost of shrapnel justifies more.   If it works for shrapnel maybe it works for individuals just as well without the need for fancy coloring schemes.

--
Eric Olson
7682 Firethorn Dr
Fayetteville, NC 28311

http://www.star-bits.com