[meteorite-list] Nininger Moment #25

[almitt]

Nininger Moment #25 The Sale of the Nininger's Collection
Part One

Since there is a current discussion on the list of where the Nininger 
Collection is currently at I thought it would be appropriate to generate 
this Nininger Moment.

 From the 1920's to the late 1950's Nininger has hunted meteorites and 
amassed a collection second to none. Hundreds of meteorites had been 
located, bought and traded to make up what was the Nininger Collection 
of meteorites. As any collector would do he certainly held on to a 
number of the most impressive collection pieces out there for himself. 
Trading other fine specimens for localities that were not yet in his 
collection and represented other fine falls or finds of that era.

In 1957 the years of effort put in by the Niningers began to weigh 
heavily as their financial survival came into question. The sale of part 
or all of the Nininger Collection came into play as the Nininger's 
wanted some financial security and a way of retirement.  In 1956 Max 
Hey, the curator of the British Museum of Meteorites had expressed an 
interest in Nininger's collection if he should ever want to sell it. The 
following year the British Museum ask for a an extensive price list for 
the collection and a vertical split of the collection for the museum. 
Nininger came up with an initial offering of $258,000 for half of his 
collection. The British Museum asked for another split of the items 
offered and asked for no less than half of the value, and asked for cost 
on cutting and preparation of those specimens. Out of 680 unique falls 
and finds in the Nininger collection, Nininger offered a 1/4 to 1/2 
split on 276 specimens for a price of $155,000 dollars. The British 
Museum asked for time to raise the money for the collection offered 
before committing to the purchase.

In the mean time and before final acceptance by the British Museum, 
there was suddenly more interest in Nininger's collection by the 
Smithsonian and Arizona State University. These two institutions were 
also needing to find a way to come up with the necessary capital to buy 
a portion or all of the collection. The Smithsonian suggested a price of 
$200,000 for the whole collection which Nininger decided would be an 
appropriate discount rate for the entire collection. The University of 
Arizona had no internal means and had to look out side for funding in 
order to make a firm offer. All three parties were notified of interest 
in the collection by the other parties but no effort was made by 
Nininger to induce bidding by the parties.

After many correspondences and delays of getting any firm offers by the 
three parties, on June 13th, 1958 came a firm offer in the form of a 
letter from C.F. Claringbull, keeper of the British Museum. In this 
letter was an offer to buy the collection as Nininger had proposed 
(about 1/5 of the Nininger Collection) for a sum of $140,000. After the 
offer Harvey Nininger cabled confirmation of the request to the British 
Museum and promptly withdrew from all other offers.

Source: Find A Falling Star                By H.H. Nininger

The Nininger Moments are articles or books written originally by Harvey 
Nininger and put into a consolidated form by Al Mitterling. Some of the 
items written in the moments might be old out dated material and the 
reader is advised to keep this in mind.

--AL Mitterling