Hello Frank, All, The trouble with that example is that it really supports both viewpoints, due to its context. First and foremost, its type was extremely uncommon at the time (Eucrites are now rather commonplace), and second, there was very little available of both the type and of the given fall. The trouble with taking into account what Ward or Merrill considered to be the primary determinants of "value" is the assumption that both value and rarity go hand in hand. While there is some association between the two, well, look at the market. You have unique meteorites like Portales Valley selling for $20-30/g, and relatively common rocks like, say, Ash Creek, going for the same amount. [Don't go off on me - I'm not complaining - just pointing out an irrationality in the marketplace.]
Price is determined by marketing and supply and demand - not rarity, though it is a contributing factor. Hence Ward didn't value the other "differentiated" meteorites as much, even though they were grouped together at the time. When reading about meteorites in older literature, one will often see comparisons made between such and so meteorite and a similar meteorite that was recently found. This is because the classification schemes at the time didn't provide adequate groupings for the number of chemically and structurally distinct meteorites being found. They didn't have "Eucrites," so they compared to known meteorites that were similar...such a system of categorization would provide for skewed senses of "rarity" (not that our current system is any better at it). And since most modern meteorite types were grouped together, rarity was determined rather differently at the time, with the availability of a given fall determining "rarity," because "types" were as yet ill-defined. Thus what was considered rare a hundred years ago might not fit the bill today - though, as I noted above, even Ward and Merrill appear to have bought into the hype surrounding finds with low total known weights, so I consider their points of view to be at least somewhat collector/market oriented. Regards, Jason On Tue, Nov 17, 2009 at 10:11 PM, Frank Cressy <[email protected]> wrote: > > Hello all, > > Thought this might be of some interest concerning the rarest meteorite, at > least from a historical viewpoint. At the beginning of the Twentieth > Century, Henry A. Ward thought Nobleborough (1823 Maine fall) was one of the > rarest of the meteorites he owned. At this time Ward owned one of the > world’s largest meteorite collections that was on par with the national > collections in Vienna, London, and Paris. The Ward-Coonley collection (now > part of the Field Museum collection in Chicago) contained 603 different > locations in 1904 and weighed nearly 2500 kilograms. In a collection catalog > of the same year, Ward stated that the Nobleborough meteorite, the third > recovered meteorite fall in the U.S., was the “rarest American aerolite” > [stony meteorite]. At this time, there were other stony meteorites with a > smaller preserved weight such as Deal (~30 gms.) and Bethlehem (13 gms.), but > they were ordinary chondrites. Nobleborough was a rare, > differentiated stony meteorite, and only four had fallen or been found in > the U.S. to that time. Two were eucrites, Nobleborough (~78 gms TPW) and > Petersburg (1.8 kg.). Frankfort (stone) (650 gms) was a howardite and > Bishopville (5.9 kg.) an aubrite. Most of the Nobleborough mass had been > lost and collections had only small specimens. Merrill (1934), in writing > about valuation of meteorites, lists three main factors that determined their > value; present known weight, petrographic composition, and number of owners > of pieces. About Nobleborough, he noted: “The climax is reached, however, > in the case of the stone of Nobleboro [Nobleborough], Maine of which there > was originally from four to six pounds, but seventy-eight grams are now > accounted for, distributed among eleven collections, seven of which record > only ‘splinters’.” > > Needless to say, most curators were extremely reluctant to part with any of > the Nobleborough meteorite from their cabinets and no doubt Ward was ecstatic > to have acquired a 19 gram specimen for his. As for myself, I too would > certainly like a "splinter" in my collection. > > Cheers, > > Frank > ______________________________________________ > http://www.meteoritecentral.com > Meteorite-list mailing list > [email protected] > http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list > ______________________________________________ http://www.meteoritecentral.com Meteorite-list mailing list [email protected] http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list
