[meteorite-list] Koenigsbrueck, Saxonia is a hot desert find

[John Gwilliam]

Several years ago, when the NWAs started showing 
up in large amounts, there were several people on 
this list (including myself) who were concerned 
about "false finds" being submitted as new 
meteorites. It doesn't take dishonest people too 
long to figure out that a common meteorite 
purchased at a show can be planted in some new 
location where a new find would bring a lot of money.

I don't know how this can be prevented or 
avoided, but it's pretty obvious that dealing 
with people you know very well is a step in the right direction.

Just four days after Jack Schrader announced his 
first finds of the latest Arizona fall, I got a 
phone call from a guy in Southern Arizona who 
claimed he had a new Arizona meteorite he had 
found three and a half years ago and he was going 
to sell it at auction. He wasn't clear about what 
kind of auction he intended to use, but I got the 
idea he was going to offer it to whoever offered 
him the highest "bid" over the phone.

I get so many calls like this I was going to tell 
the man I wasn't interested but decided to ask 
him a few questions. His answers were typical and 
somewhat amusing. The find location was somewhere 
in Southern Arizona, but he wouldn't narrow it 
down any more than that. He claimed the first 
test he had done was a fire assay. Hmmmm, seems 
like a weird test for a meteorite. Next, when 
asked what the classification was, he said it was 
an anomalous achondrite with 28% nickel. He had 
sliced the nearly 2 kilo stone and had a ~750 
gram slice that was full of metal veins. To get 
the metal to show up better he had etched the 
slice with pure nitric acid. as I asked more 
questions, his answers got more evasive.

Sure hope I didn't miss out on a good deal, but 
my common sense told me to take a pass.

There's nothing to prevent someone from offering 
an inexpensive NWA meteorite as a new find. As 
long as they stick to their story it's near 
impossible to prove them wrong. It has happened 
to me a few times so I'm guessing it has happened 
to other List members as well.  Is there a 
solution to this?  I guess only time will tell.

Best from sunny Arizona where we're expecting 115F today,

John Gwilliam





At 07:16 AM 7/28/2009, Martin Altmann wrote:
>Hello list,
>
>because I couldn't find it mentioned yet on the list here.
>
>In the last German meteorite, a "find" made in 2004 in Saxonia by a
>moldavites hunter,
>typical weathering feautures of hot desert meteorites were found.
>So it was a fake.
>
>Hopefully Königsbrück will be soon removed from the Meteorite Bulletin
>Database?
>
>Unfortunately I still find there another skeleton in the cupboard of German
>meteorites listed as an official meteorite.
>
>Inningen, Bavaria, 1998.
>
>The Ni-content and the trace element data are consistent with Sikhote-Alin
>and the piece is a typical shrapnel.
>(That's why no structural type had could been determined).
>
> >From impact dynamics we all know, that shrapnels are produced only by
>impacts of major iron masses.
>
>Inningen was a single 1.2kg specimen, "found" on a road.
>
>It's highest time after 10 years now, I'd say, to remove Inningen from the
>Catalogue or at least to mark it as doubtful.
>
>(That becomes more and more a fashion to fake finds. A while ago someone in
>Germany claimed to have found a Gibeon in a quarry - and 2 weeks ago a
>German tried me to sell a meteorite he had found here by his own - an
>indochinite!)
>
>Best!
>Martin
>
>
>
>
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John Gwilliam

Too many people were born on third base
and go through life thinking they hit a triple.