[meteorite-list] Yet another gimmicky expensivemeteorite"collectable"

[cdtucson at cox.net]

Martin, Forget about the job as a cook. Like Steve said, you need to publish your writing. Fantastic. 
--
Carl or Debbie Esparza
IMCA 5829
Meteoritemax


---- Martin Altmann <altmann at meteorite-martin.de> wrote: 

> Ah Mike and Steve,

> 

> it's not a big thing. Each child can do these tiny stats,

> and each professional meteoriticist, would need to come to these simple

> conclusions, because he knows where to find the Bulletin Database on web,

> not more than 5 to 10 minutes.

> 

> And that's why I'm often so impatient.

> Because the data are so clear and the opposite of a secret.

> And sometimes so shocked (e.g. when I had read that the former president of

> MetSoc.....ooops, - and so often not diplomatical, therefore shhhhhht). 

> 

> But in general, 

> cause I'm sometimes asked by people, who found on web an article about

> meteorites,

> or often also by friends, who have nothing to do at all with meteorites,

> some of them scientists in other fields, but also "ordinary" people like you

> and me,

> 

> and with them, if you only present the numbers and figures 

> (which everybody could find out more or less easily in web),

> 

> Then they are more than astonished about what's going on in the meteorite

> world.

> Because nobody can understand, what unfortunately is going on in meteorite

> science and politics regarding the very meteorites. Cause it's highly

> inefficient and illogical.

> 

> With figures and numbers I mean:

> 

> The find rates:

> 

> In Antarctica,

> In desert countries.

> In countries with protectionist laws before and after

> In countries without protectionist laws.

> Of "private" parties

> Of "official" expeditions.

> The find rates before the desert rush.

> The find rates during the desert rush.

> The weights of the finds from everywhere

> The weights of the "interesting" types among these.

> 

> The monetary aspects:

> 

> The costs of the Antarctic campaigns.

> The costs of the "official" expeditions.

> The costs of meteorites on "the market"

> The volume of traded meteorites in total.

> The costs of meteorites in history.

> The costs of meteorites today.

> The budget of universities and museum to acquire meteorites today

> The budget of universities and museum to acquire meteorites spent yesterday.

> The budgets of universities for acquisitions in other departments.

> The costs for branches of science dealing with similar questions like

> meteoritics.

> The costs for space-flight missions with mineralogical objections.

> 

> (O.k sometimes too the prices and values for meteorites, given in media or

> launched there by some of the protectionism advocacies. The incomes of a

> meteorite dealer...)

> 

> 

> And believe. NOBODY can understand why so few is done for meteorites from

> the official science side or why not more advantage is taken from the new

> finds

> and why not all are happy about that what has taken place during the last

> years.  

> 

> 

> And in fact I have no influence on that.

> I see scientists, who agree with my and the opinion of the majority about

> that nonsense.

> I see scientists, who are happy about the new finds and prices and take

> advantage of it.

> I see scientists, who want to take advantage of these paradisiac times,

> but can't due to a sometimes complete cut-back of their budgets.

> I see scientists, who think, that someone like we are criminals.

> 

> And I think the majority never got aware of this funny situation,

> because meteorites, meteoritics, meteorism is so extremely special,

> cause else the museum and labs would be full of the new finds,

> we wouldn't have these sick legal discussions

> and all in the meteorite world scientists, collectors, curators, dealers,

> hunters, planetologists, and even the tax-payers would be happy and would

> live happily ever after

> and unlike now and in the following years, the flow of incoming new finds

> revealing us more and more the secrets about our solar system

> would never run dry.

> 

> And it even wouldn't cost a thing.

> But obviously we're not intelligent enough,

> 

> and honestly, I'm getting tired to occupy myself with always the same mess,

> which nobody understands - I rather like to do our meteorites, the stones,

> until they will have closed down each and every country.

> 

> Everything further to that topic would be recurrent and anyway we have no

> credibility at those persons, who have to be convinced, cause we're dealers

> and collectors - so anybody else is better capable to show the trivial and

> evident facts than me.

> 

> And I'm tired to play the squaller.

> Our job is, like the other hunters and dealers too, to continue to deliver

> the rarest of the rare, the types, which the "official" side doesn't find or

> hardly finds and to deliver them at so low costs which they never can met or

> to make it possible for them at all due to the low costs to get them in

> their institutes, which they never could afford else and to deliver them to

> those, who appreciate our work.

> 

> So please maybe others instead of me could be the Cassandra or Pandora or

> whatever for legendary grouches existed.

> 

> I mean, it's in our all own interest.

> Or at least in the interest of all these who LOVE meteorites

> or who do that great research on meteorites.

> 

> Because if they don't care, nobody will care

> And we have to be aware, that the World will turn around also without

> meteorites.

> 

> 

> ...man, I even have not a minute time to learn a better English...

> 

> Gosh perhaps we should buy 1001 IMCA-Teddy-Bears and whenever we meet one of

> the old protectionists, we could bombard him with that stuff and scream: We

> love meteorites, we love you, we want to help you, we want to bring you so

> much meteorites more, which you never would get else and which you never

> would get funded....

> 

> Stamp collecting is also fine,

> but we learn so few from them about the universe.

> 

> So. And now I have to apply for a job as cook on the Suisse-Omani

> expeditions. - I have to look ahead for the post-desert time.

> So I will be able to see at least a few weathered OCs on my working place to

> have a certain continuity. 

> 

> Cheers,

> Martin

> 

> Disclaimer:  These and all postings are solely my opinion.

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> 

> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----

> Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com

> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von Galactic

> Stone & Ironworks

> Gesendet: Dienstag, 7. Juli 2009 16:41

> An: Martin Altmann

> Cc: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com

> Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Yet another gimmicky

> expensivemeteorite"collectable"

> 

> Hi Martin and List,

> 

> Well analyzed Martin.  Reading your posts on these matters is like

> receiving an education.   Now if we could just get the governments in

> question to read this list and consider what Martin has written

> extensively on, then we might see a return to reason.

> 

> It is in nobody's best interest to restrict the search for, discovery

> of, and trade of meteorites.

> 

> Best regards and clear skies,

> 

> MikeG

> 

> 

> 

> On 7/7/09, Martin Altmann <altmann at meteorite-martin.de> wrote:

> > No,

> >

> > it shows only how exotic these laws are.

> >

> > I'm sure the "Australian Government" doesn't intentionally want to keep

> the

> > Australian meteorites in Australia,

> > I'm rather convinced that quite nobody in the Australian government is

> aware

> > of that law at all,

> > because normal people don't know about meteorites or care about at all.

> >

> > And you have to keep in mind, how such laws happen.

> > The most probable scenario is,

> > that there are a handful of curators or meteorite scientists, who express

> > their wishes, that the national meteorites should be theirs or that they

> > should end in their hands or what ever their motivation might be.

> > No matter how thought-out their ideas are,

> > and they are sitting in a committee or elsewhere

> > they give the recommendation to the legislature, that meteorites do have

> to

> > be protected.

> >

> > Legislature means: politicians and civil servants.

> > Of course these people can't have any idea what a meteorite is, how they

> are

> > found, how many do exist, what for a scientific or economical value they

> > have or don't have and how they were exchanged between finders, museums,

> > dealers, collectors in past.

> > At best they have heard of artefacts, dinosaurs, resources - and know,

> that

> > these other - in their eyes similar - objects, have to be protected and

> are

> > of great importance -

> > and anyway the proposal to protect meteorites comes from scientists, hence

> > people, who are supposed to know about what they are talking,

> > therefore they will always wave that petition through

> > and will add the word "meteorites" into the relevant already existent

> laws.

> >

> > You see it in the Aussie-Natural-Heritage lists,

> > there they simply added "meteorites",

> > it would have been logic to add the Australian tektites too - they are

> much

> > more valuable than that Henbury, Mundrabilla, Boxhole, Camel Donga,

> > Millbillillie stuff and much more rare, but you don't find them there.

> > There you can see how arbitrary that all is.

> >

> > Or think to Poland - in the last 70 years they had 4 (four) meteorites

> there

> > - so I really doubt, that any politician would have seen an urgent need

> for

> > action to create a law for meteorites

> > - but they did, so bizarre or droll this may sound to you.

> > Most probably because a panjandrum put a bug in a clerk's or politician's

> > ear. Or because one from the latter felt for the usual rubbish in the

> > newspapers, that meteorites would have a value of millions of dollars per

> > stone and are trafficked and dealt by shady persons by thousands of tons

> on

> > ominous black markets. So that they get alerted, to protect the thousands

> of

> > tons and quadrillions of Zloty of their Polish meteorites

> > (and to get a faster promotion).

> >

> >

> >

> > But! If once a word is added into a law,

> > then it will be horribly difficult to remove it from there again.

> >

> > Look - nobody could have said anything about that experiment to protect

> > meteorites in Australia.

> > Now we can judge the results, because enough time has elapsed to see, what

> > the impact of this laws were.

> >

> > Well and there everybody can see, that the law had a converse effect than

> > initially intended:  Much, much less meteorites are recovered and almost

> no

> > Australian meteorites end up anymore in the Australian institutional

> > collections and universities.

> >

> > Wait - I will look in the Bulletin Database.

> >

> > During the last 10 years - 1999-2009

> >

> > 2007:    Bunburra Rockhole, EUC, 			tkw 324g -  a Fall

> >

> > 2006:    Eldee 001   L6, S3, W1-2 			tkw 4.51kg,

> >          Eldee 002   L6-melt breccia, W2 		tkw 101g

> >          Yaringie    H6,                       tkw 5.75 kg

> >

> > 2003:    Prospector Pool   Iron, ungrouped 	tkw 2.77kg

> >

> > 2002:    Myrtle Springs   H4 				tkw  53g   (Hello

> > Don!)

> >

> > 1999:    Dunbogan   L6                         tkw  30g    a Fall

> >          Reid 028   H6, W3				tkw  30g

> >

> > Makes up     8  (eight) meteorites.

> > Australia has a total of  649 meteorites.

> >

> >

> > And these, Ladies and Gentlemen, were the complete officially recorded new

> > meteorites of the decade of a whole continent, a continent full of

> deserts.

> >

> > For you in USA, where no such laws exist, to compare:

> > (I don't know, whether your deserts are of comparable size and so suitable

> > for meteorites like the Australian deserts)

> >

> > But USA had in the same time:

> > 1999-2009 officially recorded in the Bulletins:

> >

> > 282 new meteorites

> >

> > And USA has a total of 1576 meteorites.

> >

> > GIST OF THAT POSTING:

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > --->  during the last 10 years 18% of all known US-meteorites were found

> >

> > --->  during the last 10 years  1% of all known Aussie-meteorites were

> found

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > I use the percentage to exclude factors like population density,

> properties

> > of the surface and size of overall surface....

> >

> > So we see, there has to be done something.

> >

> > We here on the list are often only lousy laymen, even most of us not

> > citizens of Australia, we have no influence on Australian legislation.

> >

> > But scientists pled for the laws, which led to the leakage of new

> Australian

> > meteorites, so maybe scientists could pled for an amendment to these laws,

> > for them finally getting meteorites to work with again.

> >

> > Therefore we all could ask Alex Bevan, Bill Birch, the McColls, Ross

> > Pogson...all the Australian meteoricists - not to forget Caroline Smith,

> > cause just yesterday here an article about London was shown, with the link

> > to the blog where she went hunting in Australia, one of the few persons,

> who

> > were looking for meteorites down-under at all, so she knows the situation

> > too,

> > and of course the Meteoritical Society,

> > that they all perhaps will write at the end a memorandum to improve the

> sad

> > situation in Australia and to find better laws.

> > But also the other scientists should help their colleagues from

> down-under.

> >

> >

> > Huh, once I was told by a list member, a German who had emigrated to

> > Australia, that he would need even an export permit for his German

> > meteorites from his collection, if he wants to bring them out of

> Australia.

> > That's a perfect integration, I'd say, if the belongings of an immigrant

> get

> > immediately National Heritage of Australia. But also somewhat weird.

> >

> > Uh imagine, if someone sends a suspected stone to Bevan to Australia and

> it

> > will turn out and classified to be a meteorite. Then he has to apply for

> an

> > export permit to get the stone back?

> >

> > Australia has so fine meteorites and had once such a meteorite tradition,

> > the superb Wolf-Creek-Crater - well worth to have a meteorite or mineral

> > fair there. But nobody from other countries will come with meteorites,

> cause

> > the paper-warfare would be a mess.

> >

> > A not so theoretical question:

> >

> > The meteorite sellers in most cases have a return policy, which allows the

> > buyers to send the specimens back, if they aren't fully satisfied.

> > What one has to do, if that happens with an Australian collector?

> >

> > That all is so strange.

> >

> > But I think, it could be of importance, that Australia where the situation

> > became so evident, that the laws disrupted almost fully new finds and

> > meteorite research

> > and where the scientists are very disappointed about the situation,

> > would come to a more reasonable solution,

> > because it could be a signal for other desert countries and maybe also for

> > the few not yet so informed proponents and Luddites, who want to have

> > similar laws there, to avoid such a disaster like had happened in

> Australia.

> >

> > Well happy finding,

> > And greetings to Blinky Bill!

> > Martin

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----

> > Von: Galactic Stone & Ironworks [mailto:meteoritemike at gmail.com]

> > Gesendet: Dienstag, 7. Juli 2009 13:45

> > An: Martin Altmann

> > Cc: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com

> > Betreff: Re: [meteorite-list] Yet another gimmicky expensive

> > meteorite"collectable"

> >

> > Hi Martin and List,

> >

> > Does anyone else find it ironic that the Aussies will put an

> > Argentinian meteorite on their Australian coin?  The Aussie government

> > doesn't want it's own meteorites leaving it's borders in the hands of

> > non-Aussie citizens, so they will take another nation's meteorites and

> > use those instead.  Talk about hypocritical.  Talk about playing games

> > with permits and laws.  They should stick to Fosters beer.

> >

> > Best regards,

> >

> > MikeG

> >

> >

> >

> >

> >

> > On 7/6/09, Martin Altmann <altmann at meteorite-martin.de> wrote:

> >> A medallion with Blinky Bill for you to engrave!

> >>

> >> ...aah, you mean the Campo coin?

> >>

> >> To complicate to order for me and you,

> >> because we would have to apply for an export permit first.

> >>

> >> (I hope the Royal Australian Mint knows about that problem).

> >>

> >> A lawyer could make fun in ordering such a coin and if he doesn't find

> any

> >> export permit icluded,

> >> he could incriminate the Australian Government/Royal Mint for illicit

> > export

> >> of National Heritage...

> >>

> >> ....so stupid are these Aussie-laws.

> >>

> >>

> >>

> >>

> >> -----Ursprüngliche Nachricht-----

> >> Von: meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com

> >> [mailto:meteorite-list-bounces at meteoritecentral.com] Im Auftrag von

> Darren

> >> Garrison

> >> Gesendet: Dienstag, 7. Juli 2009 06:29

> >> An: meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com

> >> Betreff: [meteorite-list] Yet another gimmicky expensive

> >> meteorite"collectable"

> >>

> >> Australian issued meteorite "coin":

> >>

> >> (mid list)

> >>

> >>

> >

> http://www.prospectstampsandcoins.com.au/web/royal_aust_mint/2009_coins/inde

> >> x.html

> >> ______________________________________________

> >> http://www.meteoritecentral.com

> >> Meteorite-list mailing list

> >> Meteorite-list at meteoritecentral.com

> >> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list

> >>

> >> ______________________________________________

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> >> http://six.pairlist.net/mailman/listinfo/meteorite-list

> >>

> >

> >

> > --

> > .........................................................

> > Michael Gilmer (Louisiana, USA)

> > Member of the Meteoritical Society.

> > Member of the Bayou Region Stargazers Network.

> > Websites - http://www.galactic-stone.com and http://www.glassthrower.com

> > ..........................................................

> >

> > ______________________________________________

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> >

> 

> 

> -- 

> .........................................................

> Michael Gilmer (Louisiana, USA)

> Member of the Meteoritical Society.

> Member of the Bayou Region Stargazers Network.

> Websites - http://www.galactic-stone.com and http://www.glassthrower.com

> ..........................................................

> ______________________________________________

> http://www.meteoritecentral.com

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