Metorites ?

[GrahamL]

Anyone collect them ? .. I have a small piece of henbury somewhere and recently bought a small sliver of an australite.

amazing bits of geology
http://museumvictoria.com.au/discoverycentre/infosheets/australites/

And if your not content with the amount of dollars astronomy is soaking up .. a little diversion into collecting could probably rid you of some more :)

http://www.cloudynights.com/ubbthreads/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/2636469/page/0/view/collapsed/sb/5/o/all/fpart/1

[jjjnettie]

I'd love to spend a week or so in the desert with my metal detector looking for them.
To find one of your own, that would be sweet.

[JD2439975]

I had 4-5 Tektites (since lost track of them) that I found east of Kalgoorlie while swinging a detector in my younger years.
Those little black saucers stand out nicely against the red earth and white quartz.

Most where about 10mm diameter, several very good condition and one was about 15mm dia with a pronounced rear dome, unfortunately badly chipped around the edges.

Very cool little bits of glass, wish I still had them.

[Robh]

So the characteristics are glassy, black, rounded with a pronounced rear dome from the flight/heat through the atmosphere. What is the element being picked up by the detector?

Regards, Rob.

[JD2439975]

Not picked up by a detector, only by eye.

[OneOfOne]

Have a few myself, but I do my prospecting on the internet :):

Meteorites from:
Henbury
Mundrabilla
Camel Donga

Tektite:
Port Campbell

Impactites:
Wolfe Creek ferrocrete
Edeowie glass from Parachilna (SA)

Plus others from around the world.

[GrahamL]

yeah those flanged buttons are amazing bits of history , very fragile as you noticed .. wouldn't like to guess what a intact one might sell for these days .

http://www.meteorites-for-sale.com/catalog/australite-flanged-buttons.html

but did you find any gold justin ? :)
couldn't find this site earlier
http://www.tektitesource.com/index.html

cool trev :)

[JD2439975]

Not a single piece. :sadeyes:

But found lots of bullets, :thumbsup: nothing worse than swinging away for an hour or two in the middle of nowhere, the only sound being the wind and suddenly getting a very solid BLIP from the detector...only to find it's a piece of lead. :mad2::doh:

Checking your link I'm shocked to see how much they go for, wish I'd looked a bit harder for them...and kept track of the ones I had, damn!

[Jen]

I wouldnt know what i was looking for :lol::screwy: they look no different than to a piece of rock to me :whistle:
:)

[MrB]

I used to live in Kal when I was a kid, found a few of these 'saucers'(yep, while prospecting with the folks), they were intriguing but being a kid knew nothing about them and threw them away. :shrug:

[Outbackmanyep]

I have a few of pretty much all the basic kinds,ie: Stony, Iron, Stony-Iron, and a tiny piece of moon too!
You can usually buy them at Gem shows as well as the normal places you'd buy them, all mine were under $60 ea.

[OneOfOne]

I have bought most of my Aussie meteorites etc from here:

http://www.rocksonfire.com/australites-met.htm

This should give you an idea of some prices.

[Gargoyle_Steve]

I've bought a few pieces of the Henbury meteorite from Rocks on Fire as well - one each for my 2 brothers, and 2 for myself, because back in '99 we visited the site. I keep one of mine in the original "rough" state, the other I've "polished" using a small wire brush in a Dremel-like tool. It looks quite amazing, but does need the occasional clean up again.

I've also got 2 small fragments of moon meteorite, and a miniscule fragment of a Martian meteorite. I saw a great doco in the last 2 weeks or so about meteorite hunters / collectors, one guy had a martian fragment that looked roughly the size of a wine cork (NOT the type with the big head) that he quoted (I think) as being worth around $35,000 US. I'm starting to wonder if decent sized peices or lunar / martian falls may not be a bad long term investment......

[OneOfOne]

They say meteorites "can" be a great investment, problem is you could have a "rare" fragment of a lunar meteorite...and one day a huge 10m diameter chunk crashes somewhere, and we suddenly have tons of the stuff. I recall reading there was one particular type of meteorite that was quite rare until a huge chunk of it landed.

[Gargoyle_Steve]

The odds of something like that happening would be ..... Astronomical !!

:rofl:

[OneOfOne]

It would certainly have an impact on the price....

Ah, we could go on for hours....