[meteorite-list] NWA 869

[countdeiro at earthlink.net]

Geez! What a great story. You were so lucky to get in on those deals. It makes my hair stand on end to think what it must have been like to rummage through a pile of unsearched meteorites. Better than Gump's box of chocolates!

Count Deiro
IMCA 3536

-----Original Message-----
>From: Phil Whitmer <prairiecactus at rtcol.com>
>Sent: Jun 24, 2010 1:51 AM
>To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
>Subject: [meteorite-list] NWA 869
>
>I love NWA 869!  It's my absolute favorite, hands down! It's ubiquitous, 
>there's so much of it to love. Back in the day, when most of you kids were 
>knee high to a grasshopper, I knew a fellow that imported over a metric ton 
>of it.  Sent it back in 55 gallon drums from Morocco in a ship container. 
>This was at the start of the Sahara rush, when you could get it for 1/20 of 
>a shekel a gram. 1/10 of a dirham in Moroccan money if you bought it in 
>volume.  The first thing you did was dump out a barrel into a big pile and 
>dive in like a kid into a heap of Autumn leaves. Then you would spread the 
>pile out and cherry pick it, there would always be some rare stuff in there. 
>Angrites, carbonaceous chondrites, howardites, eucrites, diogenites, you 
>name it, the Moroccan dealers were not so discerning back then, they were 
>just learning their trade. Then you would go for the unclassified OC's, the 
>really fresh looking fully crusted ones. Some real beauts could be found. 
>The funny thing about 869 is that the really big ones, the boulders, are 
>smoothly crusted, more often black than  brown. The very small ones too have 
>a smooth black crust.  All the rest can be put into a big pile, no one would 
>mistake them for anything other than 869.  It's mostly the color, but the 
>texture too.  No other meteorite has that bluish color that sometimes looks 
>grey green depending on the light. Sometimes it has a violet tinge, like Liz 
>Taylor's eyes.  All the midsize rocks had the same distinctive color and 
>bumpy, knobby texture. This type was the vast majority of what was and 
>probably still is sold as NWA 869. The other stuff was probably just mixed 
>in by mistake, probably by a guy with a scoop shovel, scooping meteorites 
>off the desert floor and into a cart pulled by donkeys.
>The real fun started when you cut it open. You wouldn't believe all the 
>different things you could find in there! If you sliced enough of it up, you 
>would see all kinds of unique inclusions, strange crystals you would see 
>only once and then never again. Tons of fun to look at it under the 
>microscope. Sometimes fragmental brecciated, sometimes highly shocked, you 
>never know what you'll see. Lowbrow or not, 869 has been made into more 
>jewelry, spheres and assorted knick knacks than any other meteorite I know 
>of. Thousands of people wear it next to their skin, some of them never take 
>off their meteorite amulet stones set in rings and necklesses. Definitely my 
>favorite stone meteorite.
>-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>Phil Whitmer 
>
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