[meteorite-list] Re: America’s Greatest Meteorite Hunter

[almitt]

Hi Bob and all,

Skip Wison is all the things you say he is but I would like to differ 
with you just a bit and respectfully. I'd like to say for the present 
time that he is the greatest living meteorite hunter. The reason for 
this is that Harvey H. Nininger found 222 unique meteorites using his 
formula for recovery. I realize that Skip has recovered most of his own 
finds but Nininger was directly or indirectly responsible for finding 
over 2,000 meteorites in his life time and was also responsible for the 
recovery of other meteorites he didn't get credit for. Perhaps Skip will 
overtake his record someday and be recorded as the meteorite hunter that 
has recovered the most meteorites in our life time. Perhaps he will over 
take Nininger's record in time. In the meantime I'd like to give 
Nininger the credit he always deserves (I am sure you do) and keep our 
eye on Skips recover efforts. More power to him!

Your comments always welcomed and appreciated.

--AL Mitterling

Robert Verish wrote:

>Just wanted to reply and say that I completely agree
>with Rubin.   America’s Greatest Meteorite Hunter is
>Ivan “Skip” Wilson.  
>As I’ve been saying for years, now, “He is the Man”. 
>And I think he will continue to keep that title for
>quite a while.  But it’s not because of all the
>meteorites he has found.  Skip Wilson is “America’s
>Greatest” for all that he has done AFTER finding those
>meteorites.  
>If Skip Wilson had found all of those New Mexico
>meteorites, but then put them in a box and just kept
>them under his bed, would he still be “America’s
>Greatest”?  Of course not.  It’s what Skip did with
>those meteorites, after he found them, starting back
>30 years ago, that distinguishes him from the other
>meteorite hunters of his time.
>If you do a Google search on “Skip Wilson” or “Wilson,
>I. E.”, you will find that he has been a coauthor of
>at least 6 scientific papers spanning a period of 20
>years from 1973 to 1993.  Since 1993, there have been
>at least 50 papers that have made reference to his
>Roosevelt County meteorites, not to mention the other
>papers that have been written about all the other New
>Mexico meteorites that he has found.  Whenever there
>was a discussion about age-dating, or terrestrial
>weathering, or residence time, or “rates of meteorite
>influx over time” there would always be a mention of
>his Roosevelt County meteorites.  
>The name “Ivan Wilson” has been well known to
>meteorite researchers for some time.  But back in
>1998, how many of the nouveau collectors at that time
>knew of him?  It took the fall of the Portales Valley
>meteorite that year to finally make Skip Wilson a
>household name to the collecting community.  
>And now that we are appreciating the fact that Skip
>has “found” 125 unique meteorite classifications out
>of his total of 211 New Mexico meteorite finds, it is
>only proper that we should considered some way in
>which to recognize all of his efforts.  And in the
>case that Skip should receive that recognition, I
>would hope that he not be slighted by getting an award
>for “all those meteorites he found”.  Yes, that would
>be a “slight”.  Think about it.  How would we know
>about his 125 unique meteorites, if Skip hadn’t taken
>the extra effort to get each of his finds classified? 
> We would be remiss, if we didn’t give Ivan “Skip”
>Wilson an award for “being the meteorite hunter that
>has contributed the most to the science of
>meteoritics”.
>Bob V.
>  
>