Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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

Posted by BeauHD on from the outer-space dept.

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.

5 of 49 comments (clear)

  1. I have a space rock to auction by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

    I have a space rock for sale. It's a lot larger than the average they have on auction, so bid accordingly.

    Specs:

    - mean radius: 6,371.0 km (3,958.8 mi)
    - mass: 5.97237x10^24 kg (1.31668x10^25 lb)
    - mean density: 5.514 g/cm^3 (0.1992 lb/cu in)

    It orbits somewhere around the star called Sol. Buyer collects.

  2. You want a rock that killed a cow? by sabbede · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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!!!

  3. Re:The million-dollar meteorite by arglebargle_xiv · · Score: 3, Funny

    I had a quick look at the catalogue and it's all famous meteorites. Non-famous ones are available for very little (heck, I have about a dozen of them sitting on a shelf). It's sort of like the difference between hiring George Clooney vs. Shlomo Gefiltashlep to do a bar mitzvah.

  4. This says more about the buyers than the rocks. by duckintheface · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    --
    "He took a duck in the face at 250 knots." -- William Gibson, Pattern Recognition
  5. Re:step right up ladies and gentlemen by RogueyWon · · Score: 4, Funny

    I hadn't realised that "killing a cow" was such a value-booster. I spy a business opportunity here.

    Buy up items which could conceivably be used to kill a cow: shovels, pickaxes, trampolines (that one needs a bit of creativity) and so on. Use them to kill cows, then re-sell at a profit.

    What could possibly go wrong?