stan . wrote:
is there really any need for this?
Yes, actually, this amounts to surrogate strewn field data to be studied at a future time when it is more technically practical.
let's be realistic here for a moment. sure an nwa number is assigned to specific fragments you reported - but if the same EXTRAORDINARILY rare material is comming out of the same location, being purchased from the same nomads (either by you, Habibi, or the French) - then assigning each parcel that a dealer gets a new nwa number seems nothing more than down right silly.
One might suspect that the material is related however it is not as valuable scientifically until the research is done that validates the pairing. Most everyone suspected that DAG 289 and 276 (?) were paired Martians but it took nearly 3 years for someone to do the research. This did allow a manipulation of the collector's market, I am sure this is a disappointment for the collector who wants to collect every numbered meteorite as opposed to every lithology. If you are suggesting speculation in that material read on.
all this serves to do is keep TKW's down via artifical means...
The only sector obsessed with TKW are collectors. TKW was established apparently to order the size of falls /finds statistically and to understand how much material was available for research. I think, rightly so, the assignment of separate numbers serves science and only adjunctly serves egos..( you know the main mass bragging rights thingy. "Main mass ownership" becomes an artificial factor out of TKW.)
The function of the NomCom isn't so far as I know at the beckon of the dealers and collectors. So we look to the latter party's interest in the functioning of the NomCom decisions. I believe as in any commodity there is an premium on rarity and this affects the market. This often is a premium set on a trap door. With a few exceptions, "investment" in meteorites is largely a shell game. The collector is the last to find out. Classic falls-- long thought bought out, command high prices when found at auction--for a while anyway. For discussion purposes, The collector is the last to find that a major museum traded off a single block of "North Beach County" which equalled 3 times the amount of material in private hands. You already bough it last week and paid as if it were the last available specimen. You go back to the store and find yet another larger piece-- even cheaper and you buy it and another and finally see other dealers selling it at a third of your purchase price. Then you find out the Bo Dealer traded a nice new NWA G3/6 plegiocryst plasmamelt sliver to The University of Azulonia for 1/3 of their North Beach County. Yeah in this case I'd like to know the TKW and WHO has it. We have found time and again that museums will trade off old "classics" in exchange for new material in a heart beat. Their rationale likely has nothing to do with the meteorite market for collectors.
<snip>
if you bought a big allende from the field tomorrow are you going to send it in as a possibly paired, new find and ask it to be assigned the name allende(x)?
Ummm mixing apples and oranges. Allende was established as a fall in an area not covered by the rules for area of meteorite concentrations. And yes there are provisions for naming a find of an unrelated meteorite in an existing strewn field or political district. I am happy with the Nom-Com's actions with one provision. I favor for lithology and statistical purposes a NWA "P" category for "Paired". The Paired number would catalog all the subsequent finds--which may run on for tens or even hundreds of years. Ergo NWAP0021 might include NWA XXXX(2031), NWA XX(1999) and NWA 00X(2006) with associated recovery age, cosmic age and weathering grade. A study of pairings could include or exclude reported collection data and suggest a subsequent axis of search. It migh allow a statistical treatment to reveal that the earth is going through a 22,000 year cycle of bombardment etc.
So I agree under the new rules Anything other than NWA1110 tain't called NWA1110 properly. However, NWA 897 or whatever the monster was is ALL NWA 897* or is it?.
Elton
* Numbers changed to protect the ignoirant
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