[meteorite-list] My daughter Lauren is getting married in 2 weeks AD sale!

[Frank Cressy]

----- Original Message ----
From: Steve Arnold <meteorhntr at aol.com>
To: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com
Sent: Sun, September 2, 2012 7:39:23 PM
Subject: [meteorite-list] My daughter Lauren is getting married in 2 weeks AD 
sale!

Hello List,

Many of you have met my elder daughter Lauren In Tucson Show the several times 
she has been there with me over the years.  Well, In just 2 weeks Lauren is 
getting married!  I know, it is hard to believe, and that you all remember her 
when she was just "this" tall.  Well, it is true, and her mother and I are very 
excited.

And we wanted to take this opportunity toinvite ALL of you to... help us pay for 
it!

I have some bills with the wedding still to pay for, andsome other non-wedding 
bills as well, and so I am very motivated to make somegreat deals this week.  Up 
for negotiation are someof the following:

Gibeon Anvil Slices. Reduced to $499.  Originally Priced at $900, for a VERY 
LIMITED TIME, and for a LIMITED number of slices, I am reducing the price per 
slice to $499 each!  Yes, you read that correctly.  Just $499. If you didn't 
read my post to the list on Aug 7, I have copied at the bottom of this email AND 
the current issue of Meteorite Magazine has a great story about the specimen 
written by my wife Qynne.  I will consider cutting one slice into halves or into 
4 quarters if and only if I have all (two or four) parts spoken for, and the 
cost per half will be $299 and the cost per 1/4 will be $199.  All slices are 
priced the same, no matter how thick or how big, as each slice tells the same 
story.  Please ask for specific details.  Photos can be seen here:  
http://s361.photobucket.com/albums/oo52/stevearnoldpmh/Gibeon%20Anvil%20Slices/

Gibeon Anvil Main Mass, 41kg.  $410,000  OK, I am joking.  I really don't know 
what it is worth, and not sure what I would sell it for, but I would entertain 
any offer that included at least a nice chunk of cash and possibly some trade 
material.

Brenham Slices.  Some large 20 inch wide 600g to 2.5 kg oriented full slices 
available and some part slices from the 351 kg oriented mass.  Ask for details 
and prices.

Ash Creek individuals and slices.  I have a few Ash Creek individuals and huge 
full slices available and am willing to deeply discount them.

Meteorite Magnets in large numbers at discounted prices., If anyone wants $500 
worth or $1000 worth of the meteorite Magnets personally autographed by me that 
I sell on ebay,, I will sell in bulk at very deep discounts.  These sell GREAT 
at shows where you set up and sell to live people.

Meteorite Riker Sets in large numbers at discounted prices. I am selling these 
like crazy out of my retail store.  Retail priced at $9.99 up to $49.99, 
depending on the rock and the weight, these items do GREAT.  See here:  
http://s361.photobucket.com/albums/oo52/stevearnoldpmh/Riker%20Box%20Sets/ 


Caldwell Kansas slices or larger chunks, Ask.

Fayetteville AR crumbs, Never on the market before, this fall happened just 3 
miles from the University of Arkansas campus. I only have a couple of grams of 
crumbs. Go Hogs!

Muonionalusta.  14.8 kg mass.  Would chop in half or sell whole.  Make offer.

Once I get enough money for pressing matters, the sale will go off. If someone 
is really smart, I would not be surprised if someone would buy a big assortment 
of my Gibeon Anvil slices and the sale will be over before a lot of you even 
read this.  But, who knows, if something interests you, check in with me just in 
case there is still time.

Thanks.

(Gibeon Anvil post from Aug 7 copied below)

Steve Arnold
Host of Science Channel's TV Series Meteorite Men
       www.ScienceChannel.com
Co-Founder Meteorites & More, 28 1/2 Spring St., Eureka Springs, AR 72632
President Palladot Inc, Extra-terrestrial Gemstones
       www.Palladot.com
Facebook:  MeteoriteMan  
Facebook:  SteveArnoldMeteorite
Facebook:  Meteorite Men
Ebay: ArnoldMeteorites
meteorhntr at aol.com


From Aug. 7, 2012

Hello List,I am excited to announce that I now have available, for a very 
limited time, a few full slices from a 51kg Gibeon meteorite that was used as an 
anvil, possibly for hundreds, if not thousands, of years. Amazingly rare, 
historically significant, and way off the "Wow Chart!"Gibeon is one of the 
largest strewnfields in the world, with hundreds of large and thousands of 
smaller sizes specimens found since science "discovered" it in 1836.  However, 
it is impossible to know how many tons of this meteorite had been found and used 
for millennia before 1836 by the natives in and around the huge Gibeon 
Strewnfield.  It makes perfect sense that as people would find hunks of iron 
laying around, that they would take hammer sized pieces, and make hammers out of 
them, and take anvil sized pieces, and make anvils out of them and take smaller 
sized pieces and forge tools such as hoes, scrapers, knives, and spear points 
etc., out of those.Until now, I am an not aware that any meteorite from Gibeon 
specimens to have shown any definite traces of being altered due to being 
hammered upon while being used as an anvil.   Smaller pieces forged into thinner 
tools likely would have rusted away after a few hundred years in the elements, 
so it is not expected that many of them could have survived to modern times.We 
have seen slices of iron meteorites that show where the Widmanstatten lines have 
been bent and distorted due to tearing apart of pieces in flight, possibly even 
by astroidial collisions in space.  But those have their bends going only in one 
direction.In the August 2012 issue of Meteorite Magazine, my wife Qynne has 
authored a story about how we acquired this piece and the slightly tragic events 
that unfolded in me discovering that it wasn't just an "ordinary" Gibeon, but 
rather that it was indeed an extra-ordinary one.  I don't want to ruin your 
reading in the issue, but I will say that after I saw that the Widmanstatten 
Structure was tremendously bent, not just in one direction, but in four 
directions, I knew this was altered by man.  (Picture a square square being 
hammered on it's edges to the point the slices looked like the cross section of 
a hamburger and bun instead, folded down on both sides of the top and folded up 
on both sides of the bottom, and you will start to appreciate how this rock was 
distorted as both the top and bottom surfaces had been flattened and rounded in 
relentless poundings).   I realized that it had indeed been hit, no doubt 
hundreds of thousands of times to artificially shape it, and to distort the 
normally straight Widmanstatten lines into amazingly curved ones. I originally 
chopped about 1/4 of an end piece off the mass, before discovering the evidence 
that this was an anvil.  I immediately contacted curators of the major 
collections, both institutional and private, to see if any of them were 
interested in trading some "normal Gibeon" (or other specimens) for either 1/4, 
or 3/4 or both pieces of an anvil?   There was no expressed interest, so I 
decided to turn the cutting over to a pro, and let Marlin Cilz slice the end 
piece into 19 slices and a smaller end piece.Marlin ran into some challenges on 
etching the slices, as it seems evident that the mass was artificially heated.  
Not heated to the point that all the pattern was lost completely, only that the 
pattern is faded, so that unlike the normal pattern one usually sees in Gibeon 
slices, where it is sharp and crisp, and where it "pops" very clearly and 
quickly when etched in acid, the etching took quite a long time to allow a much 
deeper etch to reveal the contorted lines in an appreciable visible state.  I 
had Marlin send most of the slices back to me unetched so I could test various 
methods of etching to see what would show off this very special alteration the 
best. Various methods and various times in the solutions produced different 
looks and different results.  All of which were hard to capture in photographs, 
and yet when holding the slices in your hands, allowing some light to strike the 
raised bands while other light hitting the deeper etched surfaces made for 
really amazing slices to behold.   Meanwhile, not all the testing resulted in 
ideal results.  Sometimes a slice would get over etched.  Other times the acid 
neutralizer would work too much and seem to "stain" the what should have been a 
nicely finished slice.  Other times, the etching acid would not immediately get 
neutralized and some would leach out  from the "cavities" of the squished 
regmaglipts on the sides that had long ago been hammered shut.  Neutralizing 
that hidden acid later would stop the etching, but not until after the darker 
stains would have set in the surface of the slice.  This would require the slice 
to be completely sanded down and the whole process to be started all over 
again.During all of this, I am wrestling with what to price this material 
at? Price it too high, and no one will buy it. Price it to low, and I will 
quickly sell out, only to have the savvy buyers resell it  (to those not at the 
sale early enough) for higher prices more in line with what the market really 
thinks it is worth.    I could offer the first slice at auction, and hope a very 
high price is set, then hope I can move the other 18 at the same, or close to 
the same, price.  But that could be problematic if one or two sell high, and no 
one else thinks any of the others are worth it at those prices.These slices 
range from 163.1 grams up to 459.7 grams, but each full slice really tells the 
exact SAME story.  Yes, some are slightly wider, and some are slightly thicker 
than others.  Some are a bit different in their aesthetic characteristics, but 
remarkably, they are all very similar.  20 years from now, when you see one of 
these slices in a museum, or in someone's private collection, you will instantly 
be able to recognize it as to what it is, if you take just a minute now to 
examine one or more of the sets of photos from  these slices.  So, really, what 
difference is there between a 163g full slice and a 459g full slice?  Not much, 
except one is quite a bit thicker, and one is a bit taller and wider than the 
other.  To the viewer of those two slices, there is the same "Wow 
Factor"Therefore, I decided it was wrong to price these by the gram.  All the 
slices, in my mind at least, are worth the same.  They all tell the same 
story.However, I want to be fair and base the prices on these to some extent on 
what the other 99.99999999999% of "Non-Anvil Gibeon" slices out there are priced 
at.  Gibeon sells pretty easily up over the $1/g range today.  Ebay has slices 
sell at the $1.25/g to $2.00/g range day in and day out.  Sometimes a tad 
higher, sometimes a tad lower.  So, a very limited number of slices, from a one 
in a million specimen could probably be justified at 4 to 5 times the base 
rate.  Some might argue that it is worth 10 times as much.  Some might say that 
"rare" irons  from other 51kg TKW masses that we see selling now on the market 
at $20 per gram might be the right bench mark to set this at.  With the 
historical implications, could one justify something near the $100/g that other 
meteorites sell at that have distinct ties with people in historical 
situations.I just don't know what it is worth!  One day, we might be seeing this 
sell in the $10/g or $20/g or $100/g range, who knows?  I think it is safe to 
say it is worth at LEAST $1.25 to $2.00/g at a bare minimum.  If I trade off the 
large uncut portion, and most of these slices end up in collections where the 
owners don't want to let them go, where will someone down the road go to get 
more of them?  It could take a person 1,000 years, of daily pounding, with a 
sledge hammer, to get a similar 51 kilo rock to end up looking like this one.  
Even at minimum wage, that would cost a LOT to make more of these once these 
sell out.Just the other day, a very famous Damascus Steel knife maker walked 
into my Meteorite Store in Eureka Springs, and we struck up a very interesting 
conversation.  As you might guess, the conversation eventually turned to the 
Anvil and the slices that I was at various degrees of preparation with, you 
could see the spark in his eye light up.   I can't make any promises at this 
point, but don't be surprised if a few of these slices end up being the 
contributing material in a very exclusive set of Anvil Meteorite Damascus 
Knives.   He asked about the prices of the slices, and I had told him I had not 
settled in on a price yet, but had told him what I kind of thought they were 
worth and he scoffed.  Not because he thought the price was too high, but that 
because he regularly sells a completed knife for much more than that, and that 
possibly we should consider making 19 knives, and use a little bit from each 
full slice to make each knife, and then bundle the almost full slice in a 
package deal with the knife that is made from the piece as a set.   We could use 
the other uncut part of the mass to actually hammer the knives out on, at least 
long enough for the photo op!  The temptation to totally forget taking these to 
the meteorite community altogether was inviting.   After talking with him, I get 
the feeling there might be more knife collectors out there in the world than 
there are meteorite collectors.  If that is the case, maybe these are worth a 
lot more than I think they are. Meanwhile, I do want to sell some slices in the 
short term.  I want to raise some money.  My daughter is getting married in just 
over a month, and as such I have some bills to pay.  And besides, I think I owe 
it to meteorite community to offer at least a few of these to them.So, I have 
decided to price ALL 19 slices at a flat price of $900 each. So, if you want the 
biggest slice at 459.7 grams, that would be a price of  $1.95/g.So, if you want 
the smallest slice at 163.1 grams, that would be a price of $5.52/g.The 10 
largest being over 316 grams, which is just $2.85/g.Honestly, I think that is a 
bargain even at the $5.52/g.Stop an think about it...how many people probably 
used this Anvil to SIGNIFICANTLY improve their and their neighbor's lives out on 
the Savannah of Africa?  And while there is no way to know when it was actually 
used, one's imagination can easily picture that possibly long before "civilized 
culture" reached their "Iron Age" in other parts of the world, there was a 
pocket of people within the Gibeon Strewnfield richly enjoying prosperity above 
anyone else on the planet, because of this amazing gift of iron from the 
heavens.  And for less than a thousand bucks, you can own and hold one of only 
19 slices of this amazing  tool that, no question about it, altered hundreds if 
not thousands of lives, all  for the better!Wow.  After proofreading that last 
paragraph, maybe I should ask $2,000 per slice?Seriously, this is off the charts 
on the "Wow Factor."   Place one of these slices into someone's hands, and they 
just might have a religious experience.I will promise to offer at least 10 of 
the 19 slices for sale for $900 each for the next week.  I do want to reserve 
the right to hold at least 9 aside (I am assuming they will be the smaller 
slices, but I will let the buyers decide on a first come first served basis) 
until the details of the knife deal are figured out.SPECIAL NOTE:  Not all of 
the slices are finished to perfection.  Some of the slices have been finished 
with some glaring blemishes.  Brown stains on some, poor etching, leaving not 
the best looking etch on others.   I had two choices:  1. Offer only some that 
are ready to sell now, but not all, then offer the others later when they are 
ready.   Or: 2. Wait until all of them were done to the best possible conclusion 
THEN put them all up to be sold at the same time.If I was offering these at a 
price per gram, maybe the the first option would have been a better option.  But 
since I am offering them all at the same price, I didn't want to not show people 
what all of them looked like, holding some out of the listing, only to later 
introduce more and possibly make early buyers mad if they think a better slice 
comes out later and they didn't get a shot at it.So, PLEASE UNDERSTAND, some of 
the slices should be refinished, and I am willing to work on them to finish them 
to the best of my ability at no extra charge.  Also understand, that if the 
process of "finishing" or in some cases "refinishing" them may require sanding 
and as such their weight might decrease a fraction of a bit.  Also, I personally 
find a tad bit of the browning of the "over etching" kind of nice, as it adds 
some color for contrasting in the deeper etch.  No, it isn't always super sharp 
silver and chrome and white-grey like a Rolex Gibeon Watch Face, but damn it 
lets you see the bent lines pop out on the surface!   I guess to each his 
own...besides, the real clean sharp etch is NOT possible with these slices as 
the mass was artificially heated at least to some degree.And of course, if you 
have any personal experience in etching, as I know a lot of you do, you might 
feel free to tackle the project of playing with this on your own to personally 
reach the aesthetic ideal you like yourself.  If that is the case, buy them as 
is, and go for it!In any case, I am convinced all these blemishes will clean up, 
as they did in the many of the other slices, it will just take time to rework 
them.I have put up multiple photos of all the slices in their current state as 
of 8/6/2012 up on photobucket.   As time allows, I might refinish one slice at a 
time and replace the "old" photos with new ones and adjust the weight as may be 
needed.NOTE ABOUT THE PHOTOS:   Some slices took better photos than others.  
Honestly, I was pleasantly surprised at how nice some of the photos came out, as 
it was hard to tell at the time of taking them.  Others turned out not so 
nice.   Some slices are stained or have a poor etch, or the photos in some areas 
just came out not so good.  Each slice is numbered in order, so if you like 
something about one particular slice, but if there is something you do NOT like 
about it, I invite you to look at both slices on either side of it.  Odds are 
REAL GOOD that the same characteristics can be found in the slice you like as 
the neighbors, even if you can't see those characteristics in the one you are 
zeroing in on.  Maybe a better polish, or better etch, or better photo will do 
those characteristics more justice next time around. If you really like a slice, 
but want better or different photos take of it, let me know, and I can work at 
playing with other light options to make them look the best I can.Again, when 
you hold all of these in your hand, and slowly rotate them where the light 
bounces just right off of the surface, they are nothing short of amazing.You can 
see the slices at Photobucket 
here:http://s361.photobucket.com/albums/oo52/stevearnoldpmh/Gibeon%20Anvi
l%20Slices/As always, first come first served.  Questions welcomed.  Paypal is 
preferred, but I can take credit cards over the phone and checks through the 
mail. But be sure to reserve your slice before you pay.After cash sales are made 
in the first week, I may be open to entertaining some trades, but I might be a 
tad stingy on value because I really think these "retail" prices are VERY 
reasonable compared to many other so called "retail" prices some put on other 
meteorites.  But if you have no cash, but have trade material, and are 
interested, at least let me know so I can get back with you shortly.Expect the 
largest slices to sell first.The very small end piece and the large main mass 
are for sale, and if interested, please contact me at:   MeteorHntr at aol.comSteve 
Arnold








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