[meteorite-list] Meteorite unclassified

Tue Jul 23 14:39:14 EDT 2024

You're totally right.   Your sweet ungrpuped C is an example of what i was
saying.  You bought it as a CM2.  Most folks would just be happy with
that.  While you may have been able to recognize it as something special,
the dealer who sold it to you didn't.  Other experienced collectors
didn't.  If another individual would have bought it, they'd be sitting
there happy with their awesome new CM2.  Everyone involved would have
thought CM2, been happy with it, and moved on to the next new acquisition
and that's the exact problem that I'm talking about.

You submitted it for classification.  You got it analyzed.  That student
advanced their studies.  The scientific community at large had a more
accurate understanding of our solar system.  None of that would have
happened if the person who sold it just said it was a CM2 and someone else
bought it.

While some pieces do go through the hands of many experienced individuals
along their journey to collector who will hold on to them for their
lifetime and then pass it to another collector, plenty of them won't and
the people who own them will never have a clue what's actually in their
display case.  While there are people who post their latest purchases on
various forums for other "experts" opinions, there are a lot of very large
collectors out there who none of us have heard of and don't do anything
online other than purchase items.  It's been years and years since I've
sold anything at all.  Back when I did sell a few pieces here and there,
most of them were ridiculously rare pieces that I havent seen for sale
anywhere at all for any price since then.  Most of the people who bought
those rare and expensive pieces were people I'd never heard of anywhere
before or sense then.  As I talked to a few of them, I was shocked at some
of the stuff that they owned.  I'll just say that laws about private
individuals not being able to own certain rocks are not always followed
once you start talking to these people who would only offer me pieces in
trade over the phone so there wouldn't be any written record of what they
said.  Here's hoping that they have better rates of eyeball classification
hits than others or there could very well be pieces in their collections
that nobody will ever see.

As Alan Rubin said, he gets over half of his initial classifications wrong
before he does the work to actually classify them.  If the man with 50
years of experience of studyung and classifying meteorites and literally
wrote the book on their mineralogy has those numbers, forgive me if I doubt
the ability of others.  One of the leading scientists in his field needs to
watch out so one of these experts will steal his job.

Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 1:50 PM Graham Ensor <graham.ensor at gmail.com> wrote:

> I agree with everything you said in principle Rhett. But what you said
> just shows the point I was making. Those you mention found in the same
> strewnfields where eventually picked out by more experienced people who got
> them analysed and classified even though they may have been originally sold
> as being the same as those found in the same area. Of course some may get
> through but evebntually things get picked out by experienced folk as not
> being "right"...I see it all the time on the forums/pages discussing new
> aquisitions. This is exactly what happens when they are sold on from NWA as
> probably this or probably that. Thats how many new and unusual specimens
> are appearing out of NWA these days when many said NWA finds were drying
> up. There are so many very clever and experienced hunters now out there,
> some with the means to do basic analysis to help them gauge what they might
> be. Many dealers these days gamble on buying what in the past may have been
> ignored because it looked terrestrial and thus the recent boom in strange
> Lunars, Martian meteorites, ungrouped achondrites etc. I find it very
> exciting looking through boxes of "probables" at shows or offers on line.
> Just before lockdown I bought a "probable" CM2 to replace ones I had let go
> to researchers for a long term project. I cut the stone and it looked
> somewhat like a CM2 but had clasts of stranger looking C in it too. I
> submitted the required amount plus extra for analysis. After 2 years work
> it was dermined to be a very unusual ungrouped C, helped a Phd student
> along the way and sits there waiting for further work as it is so
> different. Material being offered like this is great for research today if
> whoever buys it is conscientious. It's the dealers who buy the material who
> need to not take the described material at face value and pass it on
> without analysis. For an inexperienced collector to buy this same material
> is, I agree, dangerous, if they add it without quesioning it and are not
> prepared to get it checked. Experienced collectors, researchers and dealers
> however are benefitting widely by getting the chance to buy unclassied
> material that has been filtered through the experience of the hunters in
> NWA, science benefits and so do dealers if they "discover" something new
> and then have a huge mark up on the deal.
>
> I say again to the collectors here...look at your own collections and ask
> yourselves if everything has been analysed to show it is what it is or if
> it came as a batch from a big strewnfield where only one or two were worked
> on to get the classification. have you got a Campo or an 869 or a
> Chelyabinsk individual... is it just part of a batch or individually
> analysed? Even those that collect historic specimens formerly from museums
> know that specimens relesed from the museums are often individuals from a
> batch which have not always been analysed or slices from such. Museums
> often display such, many individual specimens that have never been cut.
>
> On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 4:46 PM Rhett Bourland <rhett.bourland at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> Honestly, just because a meteorite is found in a known strewn field
>> doesn't automatically make it part of the same fall.  Twink Monrad found
>> Golden Rule and Golden Mile in the Gold Basin strewn field.  Calcalong
>> Creek was originally sold as part of the Camel Donga strew field.  NWA482
>> was originally thought to be a eucrite.  The folks who go to Antarctica
>> each year go back to the same areas to find more because of the way
>> glaciers move.
>>
>> When talking about how not getting everything classified is bad for
>> science, that isn't just about common material being sold as something much
>> rarer.  The real danger is rare and scientifically important pieces being
>> sold as something more common.
>>
>> On Tue, Jul 23, 2024, 10:22 AM Graham Ensor <graham.ensor at gmail.com>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> I see no problem in anybody saying a probable meteorite is unclassified
>>> but is likely to be a certain type. It is no different on line or throught
>>> the met list than traveling through Morocco or visiting a show, looking at
>>> hundreds of unclassified probable meteorites, and discussing the likelyhood
>>> of that or what type they may be with the seller. That's the way many
>>> dealers work to find unusual types that then get taken further to be
>>> officially classified. I see no fault with a NWA seller working in this
>>> way. The The fault comes if buyer does not then get it analysed or
>>> classified and tries to sell it on as an authentic classified meteorite.
>>> There are also thousands of meteorites amongst the hundreds of collections
>>> that came through NWA dealers from established large strewnfields which sit
>>> there as examples of a variety of falls/finds and have never been cut and
>>> classified. Just found as part of a new fall/find as it's impossible for
>>> every piece to be classified....examples are Chelyabinsk, Ribbeck, Erg
>>> Chech 002, Tissint, Holbrook,...the list is endless. I suspect very few
>>> collections consist of specimens where each individual has been classified
>>> and most have individuals of those I've mentioned (or others) that have
>>> never seen a scientist. If you are new to meteorites or have very little
>>> experience then this is probably not the avenue for you to buy for a
>>> collection unless you are happy to go to the trouble of getting analysis
>>> done.
>>>
>>> G
>>>
>>> On Tue, Jul 23, 2024 at 2:32 PM Rhett Bourland via Meteorite-list <
>>> meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Educated guesses aren't classifications.  Nobody can do that.  I've got
>>>> close to a couple hundred pieces in my collection that I've built up over
>>>> the past 25 years.  I own classes of meteorites that most museums don't
>>>> even have because the museums that I got them from told me where the other
>>>> pieces were.  I can safely say that I have handled and seen even more in
>>>> that time.  The IMCA got started in my living room. I wouldn't even call
>>>> something a meteorite unless it got tested.  As Anne Black recently said,
>>>> people guessing what they have and presenting it as such is nothing but
>>>> harmful for the science and commercial trade of these rocks and that woman
>>>> has seen and handled stuff that I can only dream of.
>>>>
>>>> On Mon, Jul 22, 2024, 3:37 PM <mendy.ouzillou at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>>> Rhett,
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Our North African meteorite family has earned the right to make
>>>>> educated guesses, especially after they have proven themselves to be
>>>>> reputable dealers AND have examined the specimen. They have handled far
>>>>> more meteorites than most dealers and collectors. There is no surprise that
>>>>> they, and Mohamed in particular, can tell the difference between a CO and
>>>>> another type of meteorite. Mohamed was fully transparent and clearly stated
>>>>> that it is unclassified. There is nothing inauthentic about the posting.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> I have no ulterior motive in responding to this post other than
>>>>> desiring respectful discourse.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Sincerely,
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> Mendy
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> *From:* Meteorite-list <meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com> *On
>>>>> Behalf Of *Rhett Bourland via Meteorite-list
>>>>> *Sent:* Saturday, July 20, 2024 9:53 AM
>>>>> *To:* Benzaki Mohamed <kemkemexpedition at gmail.com>
>>>>> *Cc:* Meteorite List <Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com>
>>>>> *Subject:* Re: [meteorite-list] Meteorite unclassified
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> It's unclassified and yet you're calling it a CO?  That doesn't sound
>>>>> very authentic to me.
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>>
>>>>> On Sat, Jul 20, 2024, 10:17 AM Benzaki Mohamed via Meteorite-list <
>>>>> meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com> wrote:
>>>>>
>>>>> Hi all members hop have a good day.
>>>>>
>>>>>  Everyone interested will be interested by a largeste co carbonaceous
>>>>> unclassified please contacte  me.all beste.
>>>>>
>>>>> ______________________________________________
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>>>>>
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>>>
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