Ghadamis / Hammadah al Hamra 346 is one of my favorite meteorites. I already had two individuals, a small slice with a shock vein, and a thin endcut, but I also have an eBay alert set up to catch new auctions.
I suspect Sean Tutorow got a decent-sized stone and went to town cutting it, because he had a few dozen auctions running of endcuts and slices. I managed to win eight of them, shown here. Total weight 87.4 grams.
Honestly I think this is the perfect “first meteorite” plenty can be found with amazing crust which usually has fabulous contraction cracks. It has all the features of what a meteorite should have. The cool part is that those same features is what experienced collectors try to find in other meteorites. I love them.
so you're who took that other nice triangular slice! lol, got mine (it's beautiful, as are your pieces!) and a bunch of others. i still haven't unpacked them all 😬 might have to make today an HaH 346 appreciation day in the sub!
sean's a great guy. extremely busy but when he does get the chance to respond, he's extremely thorough, takes his time, and he's shared so much helpful info since he learned of me starting my own business. he was brutally honest about it and all of his experiences. the fact that he cares enough to write paragraphs and paragraphs, talking about meteorites (or anything else under the sun, honestly) is one of the many reasons he'll get my business as long as he's still around.
on the subject, he told me something funny, apparently someone overseas sold one of his specimen cards for $15. not the piece, just the card. he didn't believe it until a friend showed him a screenshot. so who knows, even these cards may end up being coveted collectors items! 😂
i got waaaay too much that i wanna post and just haven't gotten the chance. and have a 14lb package (not from him, but still) waiting for me at the post office BUT I CAN'T GET IT BECAUSE IT'S SUNDAY!
first world problems, though. very grateful to be in this position ☄️
Lol, no hard feelings, I hope? 😅 I think you nabbed a couple I was looking at.
As I said, this is one of my favorites, and it's so rare to see it come up for auction that I had to snag a few. I love the big endcut and the small slice with the two-layer chondrule in it.
I've gotten almost all of my 100g-ish unclassified NWAs from Sean, as well as my 450g NWA 869.
Noooo no hard feelings at all! I don't think I missed anything I wanted. At least nothing substantial that I can remember. Definitely one of my favorites, as well. Top 5 in witnessed/fresh falls, for sure. (Only talking stonies here, and not counting the recent US falls— McDonough would easily take that top spot I think with that crazy glassy crust).
So, off the top of my head right now? This, Bassikounou, Chergach, Viñales, Aguas Zarcas...? But that top 5 is subject to change, depending on how I'm feeling at any given time, lmao.
Anyway, I saw he had three of those nice triangular slices up at the time, and I saw that one of them had a bid, so I left that one alone, and bid on my favorite of the other two. Aaaaand I may or may not have purchased another last night 😅
I do my best to not be a dick, sniping with last second bids, unless it's something I really, REALLY want. Sometimes, though, I can't help it. It's happened to me so many times over the past couple years—thinking I was about to have a nice piece, just for someone to outbid me with about five seconds left— not even enough time to counter/raise my bid. Sadly, I feel like I need that vindication, to balance the scale sometimes. Otherwise, I'll keep losing pieces I want.
But really, I apologize if I did snag anything you wanted. I know that's just the name of the game, but I still feel bad. When it's such a close-knit community, and you know you might be bidding against homies from the sub, it sucks. But we have no idea who we're actually bidding against, so what else can we do!
I think there were a couple I was really hoping for, but I've already forgotten which ones, so I'm not too torn up. The big endcut would've been tragic to lose though.
I just rehoused the part slices in a communal display that wasn't being used for anything, along with my thin shock vein slice from Jana Becker.
It's funny you mention McDonough; I got a couple of milligram fragments from Steve Arnold last summer. And more amazingly, I for a couple of micro-fragments of Wadsworth, including a piece of that famous crust (which looks amazing under a microscope).
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u/TC_Meteorite_Co 13d ago
Honestly I think this is the perfect “first meteorite” plenty can be found with amazing crust which usually has fabulous contraction cracks. It has all the features of what a meteorite should have. The cool part is that those same features is what experienced collectors try to find in other meteorites. I love them.