-----Original Message-----
From: WBranchsb@aol.com [mailto:WBranchsb@aol.com] 
Sent: Friday, November 27, 1998 3:51 AM
To: RVerish@jftl.jpl.nasa.gov
Subject: Re: Meteorite Until PROVEN Meteorwrong

Hello Bob,

That was a great story!  

I occasionally am asked to identify possible meteorites and I always tell
these these people not to send it to me but to a laboratory for verification
(not another dealer).  Your story just reinforces me me to continue this
policy.

-Walter

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RVerish@jftl.jpl.nasa.gov wrote:

Granted, my story is probably the exception, but I wonder......

I'm hesitant about telling this story for fear of sounding self- congratulatory, but 
this recent spate of posts about meteorite identification makes me think there may be 
a lesson to be learned here.  After all, four years ago I, too, was asking 
for assistance in having my meteorite wanna-be to be positively identified.  
First by local "experts" (anybody that has seen more real meteorites than me).  
They said, "highly unlikely", "no fusion crust", "inconclusive"! So, I sent it 
back East to a well respected commercial meteorite firm that 
offered free analysis & ID.  They said, "Sorry, it's hematite"!  

Well, that didn't satisfy my curiosity, so I placed it on the shelf of my bookcase, and 
that is where it has sat all this time until today during the halftime of the 
Pittsburgh-Detroit NFL game, when my wife suggested that I clean off that shelf.  
While cleaning off this shelf, I looked at this "wanna-be" for the 300th time and 
still wondered why my wishful thinking would cause me to disagree so much with the "experts"?  
But this time, as I looked at it, I saw it differently.  I've looked at a lot of meteorites 
this past year, and now my "wanna-be" reminded me of some those Saharan O.C.s that I've recently seen.  
The game was starting back up, so I hurriedly decided to throw this "hematite nodule" 
into my saw and see what was really inside once and for all. 

By the time Pittsburgh tied the game, I had in my hand a small end cut with.... 
- "Holy Shiite Muslim" - "metal fleck!!" 
I actually wondered whether my wishful thinking was fooling my senses?  
(Did I really hear Jerome Bettis say "tails" on the coin toss?)  
I quickly cleaned off the slab, and now I could clearly see chondrules.  
I remember hearing myself mumble, "I've BOUGHT worse looking H6s!"

Even though Pittsburgh eventually lost the game, I was still chuckling to myself.  
For the whole time that I've been stomping around the Mojave Desert trying to find 
the 30th (next) California meteorite, it turns out to be sitting on my bookshelf 
the whole time!  Doh!

Now when someone presents me with their "wanna-be" (now cast in the role as "the expert"), 
I never say that it isn't a meteorite.  I just insist that they take it to 
any one of the seven laboratories available for verification, and wish them "Good Luck".  

Because good luck does happen. ;-) 

Hope your Thanksgiving was as happy as mine,
Bob V.

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