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What Can I Do With My Meteorite?

Posted by Cliff on from the pet-rocks-from-outer-spaaace dept.

DanCracker asks: "I've just inherited a 34 lb metorite from my grandfather. As a child, I was alwasy fascinated by it, but never developed my intrest. As much as this means to me, I've got little need nor room for such a thing. What is the next course of action I should take? Contact labs or universities? Post it on eBay? Help!"

5 of 72 comments (clear)

  1. donate it... by Dukebytes · · Score: 2, Interesting
    try here... The Natural History Museum in London

    I bet that they would put your grandfather's name on the sign that describes it and such... Not to be cold, and very sorry for your loss, but it would kind of immortalize him in a little way.

    Duke

    --

    FreeBSD: Nothing runs like a daemon with a pitch fork.
  2. Sell it. by Perdo · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Price Guide

    Museums are typicly for profit first and education second. Sell it to a museum. Do not donate it.

    At $100 a gram average, you are sitting on about 1.5 million dollars.

    Sell the shit out of it and don't look back. Do not be a sucker.

    --

    If voting were effective, it would be illegal by now.

  3. dice it up... by onomatomania · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Break it up into chunks and sell them for their Super Mystical Energy Powers to the New Age loons...

  4. Something to note by quantax · · Score: 4, Interesting

    This item will most likely not get more valuable as time passes, so if you wish to make any monetary gain on it, the sooner you sell it the more money you make on it. Now, in the short run this may not be true, but as privitized space programs start becoming more prevailent, meteorites are going to become 'common' items. A meteorite is merely a piece of rock thats been moving through space for a while; there's a lot of them out there, we just don't have immediate access. Once companies can easily procure such items, they will start selling them to labs in record speed. Unless they pull some sort of 'diamond-mining' scheme, prices will drop. So in short, do not depend upon the meteor as a longterm investment.

    --
    "What can a thoughtful man hope for mankind on Earth, given the experience of the past million years? Nothing." -Bokonon
  5. I have to agree... by cr0sh · · Score: 3, Interesting
    With the posters who have said "keep it" as a reminder of your grandfather. At the same time, I would get it appraised, and if valuable, put it in a bank vault or something.

    I have only seen a few meteorites, all except one in museums (that one was owned by a mail clerk at my work, who asked me if I thought it was a meteorite and what should she do - I told her it certainly looked like one, felt and weighed like one - iron, bubbled - told her to get it looked at by someone at ASU). I don't know if all meteorites look like this (I could only describe it as "porous" or "spongy" iron chunk - looks almost like lava rock, but bigger, and iron - stick a magnet to it), but every one I have seen looked like that (which don't mean jack).

    So, get it appraised - but keep it. If you liked your grandpa, and you have memories of it as being interesting as a kid, then it is something worth keeping (but hey, if it is valuable, use it for collateral or something)...

    --
    Reason is the Path to God - Anon