My meteorite collection

Been collecting them for around 15 years.

Bought most of my collection. Most came from an estate sale.  I was talking to a meteorite dealer down in Southern California who was helping to teach me how to ID meteorites. I would bring stones that I thought were potentials and he would tell me which ones were no and which ones to get checked out.  Well, I brought one in one time while I was down there and he looked at it and hos eyes got real big. He said "this looks like a martian (meteorite from Mars). So, I immediately sent it off to the lab as they are rare and run about $1,000 per gram.  

In the meantime I started researching martian meteorites in depth to understand what I was looking for better. I saw what he meant, and it does show properties of a martian meteorite as well as there was an area that has properties of another rare meteorite known as an angrite. 

I did some tests on pieces, had thin sections made to look for features under a cross polarized microscope, and put together a write up on the evidence I had found that led me to believe this is a meteorite such as iron-nickel inclusions, what appears to be a fusion crust on some pieces, found in an elliptical field, cannot find a source for the stones anywhere in the area, found one oriented piece couple miles away, but not a single piece anywhere in between, shock vein though one of the samples made in to a thin section, etc.  

A few months later the lab contacted me and asked if they could do oxygen isotope analysis on it that helps identify the parent body, which I read they only do on rare, confirmed meteorites due to the time and cost involved.  So, I told them of course, that is why I sent it, to find out what it is.  They did not have the equipment though, and so they sent it out to the university for the test. They had their own specimens though that got priority and long story short my samples I sent them got set aside and forgot about until fairly recently when I finally was able to get a response from someone and they tracked down the samples after 15 years.  They were supposed to do some test back in April, and I did not hear from them. Finally wrote them again and the samples were prepped for ion probe testing, which they were supposed to have done December 1st. So, I am hoping to have an answer really soon after all this time.

Anyway, when I heard they were going to do the oxygen isotope analysis, I was really excited and went down to Southern California to fill the meteorite dealer in that was helping me and brought a piece of the stone for him as a thank you for all his help.  He was not there and I asked where he was. He had a brain tumor that he did not tell anyone about, even his daughter, and he had passed away.  They were having an estate sale that day that had been going on already for a couple of weeks at his house that his daughter was running.  So I met her and she told me that there was still a lot of stuff around back. I walked around back and he had more stone than I do, which is a lot.  The San Diego club was there ripping open bags of agates and making a real mess as well as being a bunch of greedy a-holes, which I will explain shortly.

I walked around back and right there on the ground was a box of meteorites, but nobody from the club apparently knew what they were.  So, I started to pick though the box looking for tiny ones I cold afford to learn more about what to look for. At that time most the meteorites were selling for hundreds per gram.  His daughter came by and said "I know they are meteorites and worth a lot more, but how about $0.50 a gram and a dollar a piece for the big ones"?  I about passed out! I bought the box and a box of really nice lapis and a few other things for $80.

Afterward, I told his daughter that I wanted to repay the kindness of her father for helping me out so much. The best I could do was I told her I would clean up her father's yard for her because the club trashed it bad.  When I was done she told me there were more meteorites in the garage somewhere, which I never found, but found some other cool stuff.

When All was done she came to me and thanked me for all my help and she had another box of meteorites for me to buy.  She had hid them from the club because she had told the San Diego club $100 per truck load of rock, which was still a real bargain as he has gunny sacks of nice Brazilian agates among other things. They were also loading up his lapidary equipment as well expecting $100 per truck load for those as well.  That pissed her off, but she let them get away with it. Still she hid the box of meteorites, which she sold me for $65.

We went back to the shop and she sold me another box of iron meteorites, that at the time nobody knew what the classification name was. Turned out to be NWA 859 "Tazas", which are my favorite and they are not cheap.  They use to run about $3-15 per gram, but lately have seen them up to $30 a gram. I traded one of my small Tazas for a $1,000 metal detector with two heads and the earphones.

She also had a box with about 65 pounds of Gibeon iron meteorites, that I bought with the help of an investor.  Wish I could have bought those on my own so I could have kept more.  Sold those to a dealer for about $10,000, and the price on those ha s about tripled on them since as they are no longer being exported.

Those make up the bulk of my collection. Since then I have obtained some others through trade, and purchase.

I do look for them while I am out in the desert.  Have a number of them that I suspect as being meteorites, but need to cut them to see the inside and maybe run some tests on them, such as nickel testing.  I was packing up to move though when I found a lot of them in a couple of locations and I have not figured out where I put them . I will run back across them at some point.

They are not easy to find, and often hard to identify since as you pointed out they can look a lot like ordinary rocks.  This is why most people search known strewn fields such as Gold Basin, Franconia, etc.  Trying to find a single meteorite or a new strewn field is very difficult and takes a lot of luck.  Most people search dry lakes as there is little vegetation and they stand out on the lake bed. Although, I have seen so much common lava rock on dry lake beds as well.

I checked one dry lake once that had little craters in it, so it looked like a potential fall site. Couple of the craters were setting off the metal detector so I dug and dug. Was about 6 1/2 feet down when I finally gave up. The metal detector was still going off, but there is no way the metal detector was detecting something that deep.

 

The other thing I do it I search Google Earth a lot for potential fall sites by looking for craters or crater remnants, or even large stones that from what I can make out have the proper shape, color and texture for meteorites. Especially if all the stones I find form in to an elliptical field. Or if what I am seeing does not fit the area such as you have all black volcanic rocks in the field then all of a sudden there is a brown rock in the field but few or no others in the area.

Best thing to do is to read up on them to learn the different types and features. Most are denser than the average terrestrial rock, but not all. Howardites and some carbonaceous chondrites, which are both very rare, are less dense than the average terrestrial rock.  For instance, I had a nice softball sized rock that I was certain was a howardite. I kept reading in meteorite books and websites that meteorites are heavier than the average terrestrial rock.  I studied that rock for over 6 months and was certain it was  howardite except the low density based on what I read.  Therefore, I finally took it back to the desert and dumped it. A while later I was in Southern California and the meteorite dealer pulled out a $85,000 fist sized howardite for me to examine as pert of learning how to identify meteorites.  I picked it up and told him, wow, this is light. He said yes, the howardites are less dense than terrestrial rocks.  I went back and scoured that desert looking for that stone and never found where I dumped it.  

Point is, do not rely totally on the books and websites and research them as much as you can.  If you get a chance to see some in person, do so.  Or buy some different types from reputable sources to learn the characteristics.  Also good idea to learn how to test suspected meteorites for nickel using dimethylglyoxime and household ammonia as almost all meteorites will contain some nickel, which is rare in terrestrial rocks.  Also, what I did is I coped photos of known meteorites from meteorite sites, made files for them then printed them out to put in plastic page holders for a binder that I could take with me when I went out. This was a good reference guide to use so I could look for characteristics associated with different types of meteorites and I could use the pics to help match suspected meteorites up.

Finally, if you suspect you found a new meteorite or field, try not to handle it too much with bare hands as skin oil, lotions, etc.  can contaminate them for testing.  And even though most people test the suspected meteorites with magnets, the scientists prefer you don't as this messes up the magnetic signatures they test for.  Instead, cut a piece off to test so it does not affect the whole stone.

Speaking of cutting, iron meteorites and urelites, which contain diamond, will destroy diamond lapidary blades quickly.  They also need to be cut super slow.