Hello list,
as there were some doubts concerning the authenticity of the Chiang Khan
material, offered here in this list for charity purposes in Thailand by
Mr.Alge, I feel, that I have to post a statement.
I unconditionally warrant the authenticity of his specimens not only as a
member of IMCA, but with my name as meteorite seller and collector.
I know Oliver as a collector, client and as a great person for more than two
years. I remember that he contacted me first looking for two meteorite
samples from Austria and Thailand for his wedding rings, as he's born in
Austria and his wife is from Thailand. Well, Mr.Bartoschewitz, one of the
largest collectors in Germany and founder and organizator of the wellknown
International Meteorite Fair in Gifhorn (attention! this year the show will
take place from May 14th - 16th and not in October) was so kind to supply
him wis a Chiang Khan specimen. For their honeymoon Mr.&Mrs.Alge travelled
to Thailand and Oliver decided to start some investigations about the Chiang
Khan fall - this first stay extended to 3 months (they are still married..)
and turned to a really exciting expedition, where they did an immense and
really great field work!
Travelling weeks and weeks through the jungle between Laos and Thailand and
holding interviews with many dozens of eyewitnesses, Oliver was not only
able to acquire a few specimens of Chiang Khan from the locals, but also
collected valuable informations about this fall, giving hints that indeed
there might be the possibility that two independent falls may have occured
in the same region within a short period of time.
On his next trip, which took 4 months, he was hunting by his own with a
detector, digging hundreds of holes as there are many iron bearing rocks,
and was lucky to find two specimens by his own.
Meanwhile he travelled some more times to Thailand, acquired more Chiang
Khan material, but now the region is empty.
He showed some of his finds to the University in Bangkog, where a stone of
2kg is kept, which is not listed in the Catalogue (they directly wanted to
buy the specimens from him) and Mr.Bartoschewitz, one of the few collectors,
who has a larger amount of reference material of Chiang Khan in his
collection compared the samples and reported, as far as I know, the new
finds to the Met.Soc.
I personally have no doubts neither, that the material is authentic. I was
helping Oliver to sell some samples and I had also the privilege to slice up
one stone.
The specimens I had display an astonishing quite fresh fusion crust. I
remember especially a fantastic oriented nose-coned stone with radial flow
lines on the apex.
The specimen I cut, showed a fine brecciation with lighter smaller clasts
similar to some Juanchengs for example.
Some of the stones you still can find listed on my old homepage:
http://www.meteorite-martin.de/chondrit_meteorit.html
and there you can see, that the stones are much better looking than on the
pictures, which Oliver made for his new Chiang-Khan-site.
Some of the specimens on my page were sold and Oliver decided to keep the
rest of them in his own collection - so one can be glad, that he now changed
his mind and is offering again some of the material and this for a really
noble purpose!
The entry in the "Catalogue for Meteorites" is inconsistent - there is given
a tkw of 367grams, but in the same article is listed a 2.5kg stone at the
UCLA.
With all the efforts it took for Oliver to recover his material, with the
unique circumstances of the fall (or falls) and the extremly limited
availability of Chiang Khan, in my eyes his price of 37$/g is firmly to low.
I was selling Chiang Khan at 55Euro/g and if you compare this price with
other falls, which are easy available as for example Barwell starting at
80$/g, Alfianello or even famous Park Forest, you will agree.
Last but not least, for all those who like those "car-, house-, letter box-,
cow-, dog-, curbstone-, my fence-, the green, green grass smashers": A
fisher man in his boat on the Mekong River was hit by some stones - the
third case from which I know.
There was the boy hit by a small stone from the Mbale fall and this women in
Sylacauga, who was hurt by the stone, who crashed through the ceiling and
smashed her radio.
And before some start to grumble for a proof - I take it for a sign of
Oliver's honesty, that he didn't run to a notary for a "certification", who
didn't attend the incident, of this event 20years after it happend as a
special gimmick for sale, as I heard, it should have happened in another
known case. So believe it or not, the fisherman and his wife are still
living there.
To come to an end, I warmthly recommend to purchase those Chiang Khans, I
warrant the autheticity, I'm sure Oliver will take back the specimens, if
the buyer is not completely satisfied with, it's a real uncommon interesting
and superrare fall at a more than fair price and finally it's for charity!
I have to say - sorry Oliver, I know that you are to
