[meteorite-list] Another crazy bidder on ebay

[Notkin]

Dear Listees:

New Year's greetings. I hope you all enjoyed the holiday weekend. I  
had a wonderful time up in Phoenix with my girlfriend.

About a year ago, Steve and I did a radio interview about our TV  
series for "Slice of SciFi," which is based in Phoenix. I have since  
done two more interviews for the same station and became great friends  
with the hosts. They invited us up to their winter party and it was a  
blast. Science Fiction fans among you should definitely check out  
their show; it's outstanding (and very funny!):

http://www.sliceofscifi.com

As a result, I took the rather unusual step of not following my emails  
over the weekend, and came home to read all this business about my  
Ebay auction. So, here is the deal:

Both the high bidders are not only customers of mine, but also  
friends. One is an experienced collector and a very popular member of  
the community; the other is a new collector and also, fairly  
obviously, new to Ebay. If either party wishes to withdraw their bids  
on the Bassikounou, it's fine with me, and no hard feelings. I'm also  
happy to close the auction and start it again from scratch if either  
bidder requests that I do so. Further, if anyone still thinks there is  
anything questionable about this auction, please email me off-List and  
I will ask both bidder's permission to provide their names and email  
addresses and you can do your own verification.

Apologies from Don and Greg both accepted.

FYI: when someone makes an accusation on the List, not only does it go  
out to hundreds people around the world, but it also gets permanently  
archived in the Meteorite Central database. In other words, as long as  
the Internet is around there will now be a bunch of searchable posts  
linking my name and my Ebay auctions to accusations of shill bidding.  
That doesn't make me real happy, so it's maybe a good idea to do a  
little fact checking, and to think twice, before posting something  
inflammatory.

Anyway, to end on a positive note there is one really extraordinary  
offering among my current auctions and I invite you all to take a  
look. It is a 91.5-gram Sikhote-Alin shrapnel specimen with a superb  
impact pit. The pit has a well-formed splash rim and is 17 mm in  
diameter! I believe it is the second-largest impact pit I've ever seen  
on a Sikhote-Alin:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=170585040150


And the rest of them are here:  http://shop.ebay.com/aerolitemeteorites/m.html



Regards to all,

Geoff N.
www.aerolite.org
www.meteoritemen.com