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Buying a meteorite.


LukeSkywatcher

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I'm just wondering if anyone here has experience of buying a meteorite online.

If so can you point me in the right direction of a GOOD seller.

I've always wanted to own one and seeing the tv show "Meteorite Men" and seeing the prices they go for really makes me want to own one even more.

I'd be happy to pay about $300 for one...............which according to the show would buy me a 10-15g meteorite.

Any help would be most welcome.

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I used to collect metorites Paul - over the years I've built up then sold on 4 separate collections !.

Are you after a particular type of specimen ? - for a standard chondrite or iron you don't need to spend anywhere near $300 to get a 15g specimen - that are many that retail at 50 cents - $1 per gram.

If you are after something more specific / scarcer, eg: lunar, martian or a UK fall then the prices are much higher of course. Barwell for example seems to retail for ~$100 per gram while lunar or martian material can fetch $500-$2,000 per gram !.

I can certainly point you in the direction of some reliable vendors. Most are US based though.

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Are you after a particular type of specimen ? - for a standard chondrite or iron you don't need to spend anywhere near $300 to get a 15g specimen - that are many that retail at 50 cents - $1 per gram.

I'm not fussy. I'm just looking for a small part of a "space rock". I'd prefer it to be iron.

I'm still happy to pay about $300...............so whatever size that buys me is fine.

If you could email me with reputable vendors then that would be fantastic.

I would REALLY love to own a meteorite (no matter what size).

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This vendor does happen to be UK based:

David Bryant's Space Rocks! Meteorites for sale. Buy meteorites, sikhote alin, canyon diablo, barwell, tektites, moldavites, pallasites, impactites from the UK's Number 1

I've bought a few things from David with no problems and met him in person at the South West Astronomy Fair this summer in Sidmouth. He's a colourful character but knows loads and his stock is geniune - established dealers would go out of business PDQ if they were selling junk.

For irons I'd suggest Sikhote-Alin - very stable (ie: does not rust easily) and a very interesting historic witnessed fall. I'd steer clear of Campo Del Ceilo or Nantan / Nandan despite it's low price - it can be quite unstable, especially if you live near the coast. Canyon Diablo (the object that formed Meteor Crater in Arizona) is quite stable and also quite interesting as well.

As I do live near the coast I tend towards stony meteorites - carboniferous chondrites, lunar and martian specimens and witnessed falls especially.

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Thanks for the link John. I trust you and your advise on all matters so if you say that David Bryant is reputable................then that is good enough for me.

I'll have a good look on the site and i'm sure i will find something i like.

Thanks.

Paul.

P.S.~~~I wouldnt dismiss a stoney/Iron.

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P.S.~~~I wouldnt dismiss a stoney/Iron.

Stony-irons (mesosiderites) are rarer than stones and irons - only around 1% of recorded finds / falls - so cost more per gram of course !. The most affordable stony-iron is Vaca Muerta from the Atacama Desert in Chile.

One other iron to consider is an etched slice of Gibeon from Namibia. The etching brings out the Widmanstatten structure and is most attractive :)

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A slightly off topic anecdote but Paul might enjoy it. My neighbour worked in the southern USA near an area of desert. Microlite pilots would over fly it in the still early morning air and sometimes spot little sand craters formed by strikes. They would give the GPS coordinates to meteorite hunters who would then go and find them. Later the wind would blow away the craters. I found this amazing.

Olly

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Following Olly off-topic, I've always loved Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's description in Terre des Hommes (aka Wind, Sand and Stars) of landing on a desert plateau in Africa and finding meteorites, superbly descriptive writing

edit: corrected the book, wasn't Courier Sud

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They are still finding meteorites in the deserts of the USA, North Africa, Australia etc. The hot spot though is Antartica although you can't buy any of those found since 1976 because of strict controls on the exploitation of the resources of that continent.

Personally it's the Martian and Lunar meteorites that I found most fascinating - the thought that small pieces of those worlds could be blasted off through an impact and then find their way to Earth is amazing.

I used to have some tiny Lunar and Martian specimens - less than a gram in total but fascinating all the same. The total mass of all the Lunar meteorites found, worldwide, to date is less than 40 kg - so there is far less of that material about than there is platinum, diamonds or gold.

By comparison, the Apollo missions returned 382 kg of specimens.

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Also off topic but seeing mention of the Barwell meteorite reminds of when I was at Leicester university in the early 70s, my tutor had some pieces of this meteorite that had been purchased from locals in 1965, who were offered, if memory serves me, about 10 shillings (50p) for each piece they found - seemed a lot to me at the time! Now that is what I call a good investment!

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I have a small meteorite collection, would love more.

A good site is meteorites-for-sale.com but it's American so if you want a big one shipping might hurt a bit but they are really good.

There are some good trustred sellers on Ebay as well and you can pick up a bargain that way.

There should be a meteorite thread here if there isn't one already.

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