[meteorite-list] It was intuition ? OK ?

[Mark Crawford]

One thing which I think the IMCA could do to give a lead here is some 
kind of new collectors' guide.  I joined about a year ago, not long 
after I started collecting, as I correctly worked out that I'd want to 
trade on some of my specimens at some point, and wanted to do as much as 
possible to 'get it right'.

I think more by luck than judgement, my records meet the 'minimum level' 
Mark G talks about - I log source and month of purchase, I keep all 
CoAs, I also keep a photo of each specimen - taken from the eBay sale, 
dealer's web site, wherever I've obtained it from.  Despite this I know 
there are a couple of mistakes for some of my earliest entries.

It may seem obvious to those who've been in the game for a while, but I 
had to figure this out for myself - I didn't find any advice on 
record-keeping.  If I hadn't taken these steps from day one then my 
collection would be substantially less valuable, but more to the point 
the whole chain of provenance would have been broken while the material 
was under my stewardship.

I think we all have a part to play when it comes to authenticity; some 
kind of summary from IMCA to new members could go a little way to 
addressing these points.

As ever, just my 2p worth...

Dave Gheesling wrote:
> IMCA BOD, are you ready to roll?  Much
> more important than the question of an orientation rating system, this is a
> great opportunity for you to establish some kind of framework around which
> to "blow the whistle" with credibility when something stinks like left out
> fish...
> Dave
>   


-- 
Mark's Meteorite Pages: http://meteorites.cc