AW: [meteorite-list] insomnia can cause clouding of consciousness

[stan .]

>Bernd, Joern, Dieter, Blaine, Alex - please you veterans help me to
>enlighten all those groups, that nowadays we are living in a meteoritical
>paradise !!!
>Tell them, how it was in the years before the desert rush.


I dont know about the other guys you mentioned, but Blaine has 'been in the 
game' long enough to tell us how it was before not only the 'nwa era' but 
before the 'speculative frenzy' era. When I first became interested in 
meteorites common chonderites might command a few $ per gram - but zagami 
could be had for 50$/g, millbillillie or camel donga for 2$/g - even 100% 
crusted specimins. Nakhla at 400$/g was considered the ultimate rarity an 
murchison could be found for 10-20$/g for tumbnail sized pieces. The price 
crash of the nwa era was directly preceeded by a price inflation period when 
people with more money than sense thought meteorites would be a good 
investment. prices were driven up by new dealers trying to see if they could 
raise their prices faster than their competition. And this was faily recent 
history too. This time predated the nwa era by only a handfull of years. 
IIRC it was 13 or 14 years go when I was tickled pink that the price of 
camel donga had 'skyrocketed' to 4$/g and I unloaded a large number of 
complete individuals to Blaine Reed. Not a bad investment for a kid who 
saved up his lunch money to buy shiney rocks from space while in high 
school.

I will admit that the avalibility of material was less back then. it was no 
where nearly as easy to pick up a  5kg ureilitie or winonaite then as it is 
today - but alot of the rare material was still much cheaper back then than 
it is today. (and let's not forget the cheap odessa and canyon diablo that 
was avalible by the barrel load)