Hi Bob and all,
Skip Wison is all the things you say he is but I would like to differ
with you just a bit and respectfully. I'd like to say for the present
time that he is the greatest living meteorite hunter. The reason for
this is that Harvey H. Nininger found 222 unique meteorites using his
formula for recovery. I realize that Skip has recovered most of his own
finds but Nininger was directly or indirectly responsible for finding
over 2,000 meteorites in his life time and was also responsible for the
recovery of other meteorites he didn't get credit for. Perhaps Skip will
overtake his record someday and be recorded as the meteorite hunter that
has recovered the most meteorites in our life time. Perhaps he will over
take Nininger's record in time. In the meantime I'd like to give
Nininger the credit he always deserves (I am sure you do) and keep our
eye on Skips recover efforts. More power to him!
Your comments always welcomed and appreciated.
--AL Mitterling
Robert Verish wrote:
Just wanted to reply and say that I completely agree
with Rubin. America’s Greatest Meteorite Hunter is
Ivan “Skip” Wilson.
As I’ve been saying for years, now, “He is the Man”.
And I think he will continue to keep that title for
quite a while. But it’s not because of all the
meteorites he has found. Skip Wilson is “America’s
Greatest” for all that he has done AFTER finding those
meteorites.
If Skip Wilson had found all of those New Mexico
meteorites, but then put them in a box and just kept
them under his bed, would he still be “America’s
Greatest”? Of course not. It’s what Skip did with
those meteorites, after he found them, starting back
30 years ago, that distinguishes him from the other
meteorite hunters of his time.
If you do a Google search on “Skip Wilson” or “Wilson,
I. E.”, you will find that he has been a coauthor of
at least 6 scientific papers spanning a period of 20
years from 1973 to 1993. Since 1993, there have been
at least 50 papers that have made reference to his
Roosevelt County meteorites, not to mention the other
papers that have been written about all the other New
Mexico meteorites that he has found. Whenever there
was a discussion about age-dating, or terrestrial
weathering, or residence time, or “rates of meteorite
influx over time” there would always be a mention of
his Roosevelt County meteorites.
The name “Ivan Wilson” has been well known to
meteorite researchers for some time. But back in
1998, how many of the nouveau collectors at that time
knew of him? It took the fall of the Portales Valley
meteorite that year to finally make Skip Wilson a
household name to the collecting community.
And now that we are appreciating the fact that Skip
has “found” 125 unique meteorite classifications out
of his total of 211 New Mexico meteorite finds, it is
only proper that we should considered some way in
which to recognize all of his efforts. And in the
case that Skip should receive that recognition, I
would hope that he not be slighted by getting an award
for “all those meteorites he found”. Yes, that would
be a “slight”. Think about it. How would we know
about his 125 unique meteorites, if Skip hadn’t taken
the extra effort to get each of his finds classified?
We would be remiss, if we didn’t give Ivan “Skip”
Wilson an award for “being the meteorite hunter that
has contributed the most to the science of
meteoritics”.
Bob V.
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