Christie's Set To Auction Space Rocks For Out Of This World Prices (networkworld.com)

coondoggie quotes a report from Networkworld: It's not everyday you could have the opportunity to buy a piece of space -- but Christie's London auction house will on April 20 offer about 80 meteorite pieces and a bunch of space-rock paraphernalia to go along with them. The collection -- consisting of a variety of space rocks from private and public collections -- is expected to sell for over a million dollars at the auction. The Valera Meteorite may be the most famous rock in the collection as it is purported to have killed a cow.

Comments

You want a rock that killed a cow?

[sabbede]

I'll sell you two for a tenth of what they're looking for. That's right, a $2,000,000 value FOR ONLY $100,000!!!

This says more about the buyers than the rocks.

[duckintheface]

The value (as with most things) lies not in the rocks but in the attitude of the buyers. The rocks are deemed as special because they came from another place and have a documented history (killed a cow). But that is the perception of a buyer with a very Earth-centric view. In fact, Earth is a big rock in space and every clod on it's surface is a "space rock".

Once we become a space-faring civilization, this rarity value attached to non-Earth rocks will seem very quaint. Since almost all the matter in the universe is "non-Earth", it will be Earth rocks that will have the value of the rare.