[meteorite-list] NYT story
David Pensenstadler
dfpens01 at yahoo.com
Wed Apr 6 09:57:12 EDT 2011
Why not have one of our esteemed members write a rebuttal and try for publication in one of New York's other main newspapers. After all, it's all about competition for readership for them. And a paper like the Wall Street Journal or New York Daily News, might wish to show how absurd the NYT article actually was.
Dave
--- On Wed, 4/6/11, Martin Altmann <altmann at meteorite-martin.de> wrote:
> From: Martin Altmann <altmann at meteorite-martin.de>
> Subject: Re: [meteorite-list] NYT story
> To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Date: Wednesday, April 6, 2011, 7:37 AM
> Hello Shawn,
>
> I think one aspect in your thoughts isn't fully correct.
> Understandable, because you're occupied with historical
> meteorites.
> Historical meteorites are by far the most expensive
> meteorites you can have. Why are they so expensive? Because
> of the poor availability.
> Why is so few available - rrrrrright, because the very most
> of their tkws is locked away in institutional collections.
> Hence they are not the problem, the researchers and
> scientists do already have them.
> Shawn, this material stems from the times, where there
> existed not more than 2000-3000 meteorites on the whole
> World.
>
> Times have changed. We have now a couple of tens of
> thousands meteorites more, within only 3 decades. The
> Antarctic ones and the desert finds.
> Meteorite science, the advance in knowledge, the new
> results - that all is done by means of these new finds.
> It's all about them.
> And they don't cost a thing anymore. That black market,
> profit thing - it is a true sham debate, a discussion nobody
> in expert circles is having, but which is carried in only
> from laymen from outside.
>
> You have to see the dimensions. Let me help you. Let's take
> the Bulletin Database.
> I give you now a summary by types of all that what was
> found - in 35 years - by ANSMET, NIPR, PRIC, KOREAMET,
> EUROMET together.
> And the same only for that what - in 11 years - was
> coming from NWA.
> Only NWA, the couple of thousands of entries for the other
> Sahara finds (the DaGs, HaHs, SAHs, Acfers, Tanezroufts) I
> leave out, as well as the complete Oman (Dhofar, JaH,
> Shisr...). Only NWA:
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Antarctica
> NWA
>
> Acap/Lod 2.73 kg
> 25.18 kg
>
> Angrites 0.02 kg
> 7.24 kg
>
> Brachinites 0.25 kg
> 8.16 kg
>
> Aubrites 5.37 kg
> 11.14 kg (still
> biased by some El Haggouina pairings)
>
> Carbonaceous
>
> CB 0.13
> kg 0.90 kg
>
> CH 0.21
> kg 0.42 kg
>
> CI 0.80
> kg -
>
> CK 4.50
> kg 32.86
> kg
>
> CM
> 18.94 kg
> 5.98 kg
>
> CO
> 36.10 kg
> 20.29 kg
>
> CR 3.61
> kg 10.85
> kg
>
> CV
> 15.64 kg
> 81.30 kg
>
>
> Diogenites -
> 83.12 kg
>
> Eucrites 47.97 kg
> 116.56 kg
>
> Howardites 11.88 kg
> 32.63 kg
>
> K-Chondrites 0.02 kg
> -
>
> Lunar 5.43
> kg 22.28
> kg
>
> Martian 27.80 kg
> 8.15 kg
>
> Mesosiderites 34.06 kg
> 259.50 kg
>
> Pallasites 202.47 kg
> 6.25 kg
>
> R-Chondrites 1.38 kg
> 30.57 kg
>
> Ureilites 16.31 kg
> 49.40 kg
>
> Winonaites 0.08 kg
> 1.38 kg
>
>
> For the irons, I'm too lazy, there we have more from
> Antarctica than from NWA,
> And the ordinary chondrites.. well they are not so
> interesting and there are from Antarctica only 500 numbers
> with a larger tkw than 2.5kg.
> Hence a few single tons from whole Antarctica
> And anyway, to bring 1000 gallons of gasoline to the Pole
> costs as much to get a ton of ordinary chondrites from NWA
> delivered to the doorstep of the institute.
>
> So you see, of what small quantities we're talking at all.
> Seen the weights and the volume of money.
>
> Look the overall expenses for one single Antarctic
> meteorite season would easily have bought all that above
> listed desert completely.
> And if one would be so kind to spend another years
> expenses, with that money one could install in each and
> every Sahara country an university meteorite department
> equipped with a microprobe and pay there two meteoricists
> for the next 50 years.
>
> Money, profit motifs, that is a bugaboo of not so
> knowledgable people.
> Compared to quite any other university research or museums
> collecting activities, we're speaking with meteorites about
> peanuts.
> Neither any "black market" does exists, simply due to the
> lack of mass.
>
> Those articles always suggest, that the private collectors
> would buy up all new finds before the scientists could do
> that.
> Please Shawn - after Calcalong was forgotten, which two
> meteorites angered the scientists most? The two DaG-Moons.
> Now see Shawn - still today - after so long times and these
> two rocks were everything else than of the size of a
> mountain,
> you can still buy them without problems, and at a rate 200,
> 300 times lower than 15 years ago.
>
> Look, Shawn, what was the most devastating article before
> that one now? It was, when Dr.Smith, the highest
> meteorite boss of the Commonwealth cried in BBC, that
> science wouldn't be able to compete with private collecting.
> Nja well, I would cry too if I would have bought the Ivuna
> main mass, because it was simply the most expensive
> meteorite specimen of the World of these years around. But
> I'd rather would have said: Girl, what are you crying, you
> could have bought so much fine desert instead.
>
> Back to that NYT article - what is the name of that
> "journalist". Mr.Broad simply only would have had to go to
> the Natural History Museum in New York and if he have had a
> little talk with the meteorite curator there, Denton Ebel,
> he would have learned not only, that meteorite dealing and
> trade is as old as meteoritics, but also, that the main load
> of meteorites in the NY collection and the great stones and
> irons, the collection was founded with,
> were simply purchased from a big meteorite
> dealer: Henry Augustus Ward. Half of his private collection
> - the other half plus before some more was purchased from
> the Field museum, which was founded hence also solely with
> purchased material. That Fields, where the curators seem to
> have a problem to purchase desert meteorites, because they
> think, meteorite dealing would be a new phenomenon and that
> in former times their meteorites had fallen from the sky
> directly into their stock. And Ebel would have him perhaps
> too, that for their crown jewel, the fat Cape York, they had
> paid a million USD to the owner.
>
> These articles, that yelling, it comes always from single
> persons, mostly standing outside of meteorites. These are
> single opinions.
> In fact the overwhelming majority of scientists, private
> collectors, hunters and dealers - they are all very content,
> how things are going with meteorites, because such
> paradisiac times never existed before.
>
> Look Shawn, now that Dr. DiMartino. He is no
> meteoricists. He hasn't directly clues about that field, he
> is an astronomer.
> And he is silly. If you look in the Bulletins, there you
> find, that he once purchased an eucrite in Algeria (and the
> Algerians made a much larger drama than the Egyptians) and
> there isn't listed his institute as holder of the stone, but
> he as private person.
>
> Now back.
> Look market, black market. These articles and those who are
> fanning the flames, they always try to raise the
> impression,
> that millions of people after quitting time would go out
> and would dig up millions of meteorites, selling them for
> billions of dollars.
>
> They want to create a problem, where no problem is at all.
> (Why they are doing that? I can imagine).
>
> And that is the dangerous thing. Laws are made by
> politicians and administration. They read that bullshit in
> NYC, New Scientist, BBC..
> and think - uuuuh - there seems to be an urgent problem, we
> have to do something!
>
> Of course - all people occupied with meteorites know, that
> this is a titanic humbug - but they can't know it.
>
> Profit. Shawn, I never met a person, who became wealthy
> during the last 10 years in dealing with meteorites.
> The times are long over and gone. Look today, we all, from
> the ominous goatherd up to the collectors who are financing
> that all,
> we made it possible that any provincial university or even
> college today can make serial examinations on such rare
> classes like mentioned above and that on more different
> samples, as they would get from the Antarctic leaning sytem,
> cause there weren't found so many.
>
> Of course Shawn, here and there might be curators moaning
> about having no budgets, but that's their job, to get things
> straight.
> Because most institutes have their budget in best order.
> And I always recommend, just browse a little bit around and
> check the budgets not only of meteorite institutes, but for
> other research projects and check the purchase budgets of
> other, also small museums, galleries and collections.
> And check the prices of the specimens on the major arts
> fairs.
> You will find out, that the annual World meteoritic
> turnover doesn't exceed the prices of one or two or high-end
> artifacts or pieces of art.
>
> So that debate is vain.
>
>
> More important are to answer the questions. If one would
> accede to the wishes of these yellers and if one would
> introduce such laws, what would that bring for an
> improvement for these yellers?
>
> Where would be the advantage?
> Would their budgets grow then?
> Would be meteorite then become cheaper?
> Would then more meteorites found on Earth?
> What would that mean for the recovery of the rare and
> scientifically especially interesting types?
> Would then end more material in the labs and national
> collections?
> Would you have then still that influx of material for free
> due to the classification process system?
>
> THOSE are the questions to be answered, before one thinks
> about banning all commerce.
>
> And partially they are already answered. In Australia. In
> Oman. In Libya. In South Africa. In Algeria.
>
>
> Shawn - one can like it or not - it has proved that there
> is simply and by far no such economic and efficient way for
> meteoritics to get the objects for their research - than to
> buy them from the professional private specialists.
>
> Best!
> Martin
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----
> Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com
> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com]
> Im Auftrag von Shawn Alan
> Gesendet: Mittwoch, 6. April 2011 08:49
> An: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
> Betreff: [meteorite-list] NYT story
>
> Hello Agee and Listers,
>
> Agee thank you for sharing your side of your story. I have
> to say I have read the NYT again and WOW. But again the
> title says it all.....Black-Market Trinkets From Space. The
> bias started off right in the title and the writer did a
> good job with getting readership, but in a bad way. I am not
> much of a person to keep up with NYT but I have to say he
> sure did know how to write a title.
>
> At first I didn't notice it but then the word Trinkets
> popped. I am confused how the writer is demoting meteorite
> to mere trinkets that you get at a carnival or some quarter
> machine. Do people sell Trinkets on the BLACK MARKET.... No
> they sell big guns, and other expensive multi billion dollar
> items. It just shows that the NYT thinks this topic is a
> joke and all they need and want ratings. Black Market in any
> title will make people stop and take a look at the article.
>
>
> But I do have to say out of this negative reporting it has
> promoted an awareness about meteorites and how important
> they are for science and history. As days pass and I learn
> more about new discoveries or old ones from historic books,
> I learn more about who we are as humans and how important
> these rocks are to us. I am fascinated by the rich stories
> and the new discoveries that can piece together it started.
>
> However, this isn't the first time this has happened where
> people ride off each other for profit. Its been done from
> the first meteorite fall and will continue to do so because
> of the value that is put forth on meteorites and how they
> play a key role in understanding the universe. I just hope
> that science and collectors keep working together and making
> history happen as apposed to some other countries that have
> law on meteorite.
>
> Shawn Alan
> IMCA 1633
> eBaystore
> http://shop.ebay.com/photophlow/m.html
>
>
> [meteorite-list] NYT storyCarl Agee agee at unm.edu
> Tue Apr 5 11:28:10 EDT 2011
>
>
>
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