[meteorite-list] meteorite the floats??

[Brian Cox]

Just to piggyback on what I mentioned earlier about anyone interested 
enough, who has the time and the energy, (Not me!) to contact ebay about 
setting up categories for meteorites, I did want to mention the old saying: 
"Be Careful What You Wish For" since it "May Open a Can of Worms" in the 
sense, that we may be categorized to death on something like that.

Now, not to leave out my Aussie friends, "Jeff" let's say it's a Miles 
Meteorite, which has been one of my favorites. It's beautiful and I had 
quite a bit of it and sold most of it. Some of you lucky blokes and lasses 
may have gotten a piece of it. So, for example, if ebay says: If it's an 
Australia meteorite you have to put which territory it was found in.  So, in 
that case we either put Queensland, New South Wales, Victoria, Western 
Australia, Northern Territory, South Australia and throw Tasmania in there 
also for where the meteorite was found or fell and picked up, etc. you know 
what I mean. Then for Miles it would be put into the Queensland category 
where it was found. Now, what if the meteorite was found on the border of 2 
or 3 of the areas, then you would put it in each of those.

Now, for example in the America, it could get quite sticky. What if ebay 
says you have to fill out your seller's form with the correct state. Ok, 
that sounds great actually. Then what if they say, ok put the county in 
also. Then we might have overlapping counties, such as the Mifflin meteorite 
in Southwestern Wisconsin, which was found with pieces in Grant County near 
Livingston and then across into Iowa County to Mifflin and the surrounding 
area. So in this case you have two counties you need to fill out for your 
ebay sale for the Mifflin meteorite.

We then in the future may be filling out the ebay auction as Mifflin 
meteorite, a witnessed fall going across the sky, and since it hit a 
farmer's shed and bounced and he picked it up, then it's under the fall 
category and all other Mifflin meteorites would be under "fall" and not the 
"Found" category. It would be put in the state of Wisconsin in Grant and 
Iowa counties. It would be put in the year 2009 and then who knows ebay 
might want the month and day also.

I'm just breaking this down for you folks.

So, if meteorite faker # 1 and faker # 2, and faker # 3 all say they have a 
meteorite to sell, like the guy in Nevada then he's got to put it into a 
category of let's say a "find" and let's say Clark County, in the state of 
Nevada. Now as far as category for iron, stony iron, chondrite or pallasite, 
etc. then since old faker # 1 has no idea what kind of a meteorite it is, 
then he couldn't fill that out, unless ebay puts in a category called, 
"Unknown" ah yes, the mysterious gray area of unknown.

Anyhow, I have to get off the computer and do some shopping, so you folks 
can play around with this idea to crack down on the fakers on ebay and in 
general rid the world of dishonest meteorite buyers in your free time. On 
your way to the rescue all your Meteorite Super Heroes!!!!!!!  I need my 
Starbucks Mocha decaf!!!

Have a great day, and a great evening to those in the Eastern Hemisphere.

All the best.  ;-)

Brian Cox

Imca # 6387