Mining Sky Metal

With the release of the show on Discovery Meteor men, I thought it would be fun to share a story about an Amateur metorite collector.
I was telling a group of people the legend of Excalibur and how it was suppoosedly made of sky metal, a meteorite, and how the size of such a piece of metal would have more value than if it were in the form of sword.
At least by modern standards, at this point on of the group speaks up, he happens to be a blacksmith that lives on the edge of the Ca, Az border and regularly finds hunks of meteorite. He explained to me the difficulties of forming meteorite as its entry process makes it super rigid, however he perservered and made a 10in long blade. Curious to see a blade of metorite origin I asked him if he hadd it on him, we where at a knife and blade convention, he replied plainly, "No I didnt like it so I sold it." I was floored!! "How Much, just out of curiosity." "Oh I think 200." I felt bad telling the guy that his first mistake was reshaping the rock and that secondly he had probably sold close to 2500 worth of sky metal. In short this thread is to let all know if you find a meteorite and its of unusual size hit E-bay kids, before you make it into Excalibur!

reply to post by TacticalVeritas


A much older friend of mine has an authentic evaluated chunk of meteorite that smashed through the back of his window some many time ago (it was there when he woke up :O). It is about the size of a digital camera and is of a complex color ranging from deep black to a meteoric blue. I haven't seen the guy for a while, so I am not sure what he has done with it. He was quite a doophus, so it is probably in a shoe box under his bed

reply to post by Scooby Doo


that is why I posted sort of a hello im new here/info post. I just wanted to make the other users aware that, forgive the pun, money does just fall out of the sky.
If you look you can find Museums, learning institutions, and private collectors willing to shell out dough for the right pieces. thanks for the story and contact that friend!

Interesting, I wonder if there are any natural rocks that resemble meteorites ..... know what I'm saying ??

I remember this story I heard about, ... a guys car was hit by a meteorite. it passed through the back end and hit the floor, .... you would think, oh that sucks, poor guy right ??

well he ended up selling this jalopy for $10,000

reply to post by TacticalVeritas


Where abouts along the CA/AZ border is this guy?
Is he still in business?
I live in AZ and I'm interested in, at some point, commissioning a weapon like that.

I remember I once saw a meteorite fall in broad daylight as I was sitting in a friends car.

It left a huge smoke trail as it came down, however it was obviously small.

On the local news a few hours later that night, the story came on about how that same meteor fell in a town just a few miles away. It landed next to a basketball court on the sidewalk, and one of the kids was the first to reach it and so by law he gained ownership.

The local police tried to claim it as their property, but the news and local university professors came out and showed the law which states the first person to it keeps it. Finders Keepers.

The kid sold it for 10,000 $ as well. He said he would use it for college (LUCKY!).

The block of cement on the sidewalk was cracked big time. Broken into several pieces, or rather shattered.

Another incident I was at a friends house once staying the night, and 3 or 4 of us were in his backyard sitting there chatting. And suddenly we heard a crackling sound almost like firecrackers, and the whole sky lit up like it was daytime for about 1 second.

When we looked up, we saw a smoke trail and it apparently shattered into several pieces or something, and there was a crazy Hue of Light around this smoke trail that was colorful, I forgot if it was green or blue. Anyways that Hue took at least 5-10seconds to totally fade out of the sky.

These things are always coming down!

[edit on 30-1-2010 by muzzleflash]

I was outside stargazing early in the wee hours of the morning, and seen what looked like a meteorite drop, then vapourize.

I think it might have been some kids playing with souped up bottle rockets, though.

On the notion of this, sky metals tend to be drawn by the oceans. It's the minerals and electrolytic activities of the salts present. They have harvesters that do this.
I think they produce 0.95~ pure metallics on the order anywhere up to 10's of tonnes.

depending on the type of meteorite the hardness can very with the nickel content.

Japanese Samurai swords are forged from what is known as black sands
and a % of black sands are meteorite material
www.stevespangler.com...

Also Legend has it that Alamo defender Jim Bowie used a knife popularly called a Bowie knife forged from a meteorite.
This may have been true because blacksmiths of the day use any iron they could find. and nickel-iron from a meteorite would have been high quality iron for the day.
Any farmer finding a large piece of a meteorite would have taken it to town to sell or trade to the local blacksmith.
And farmers would have found them when plowing there fields.

Those "smoke" trails are actually dust and they do light up!! its the gases burning off with the base elements that make up the rock, blue-green being your copper or argon mixtures, yellow, sulphur, reds irons and nickels, whites phosphorous or some other white burning element. they are gorgeous, during the 03' leonids I watched what could be described as a firework finally of meteors burning across the sky all colors of the rainbow, even purple!! that piece of art lasted for about 45mins. havent seen one like it since. but I watch every event! Keep looking up you may see that interstellar left hand turn I keep wishing for

Forgive me I missed a good question, in answer to your question some Volcanic rock does bare a resemblance to sky rock, but only a slight one, if you have ever seen a meteorite you know one when you see it as oppossed to a lava flow composite mineral chip laying around on the ground.

[edit on 28/01/10 by TacticalVeritas]

It would be so cool to make a career out of this....

I could do it. I would set up a chair, make some cocktails, and wait for stuff to fall out of the sky

Maybe I shouldnt quit my job yet...

Originally posted by Matthew Dark
reply to post by TacticalVeritas

 

Where abouts along the CA/AZ border is this guy?
Is he still in business?
I live in AZ and I'm interested in, at some point, commissioning a weapon like that.

Im betting that if you wanted to find a bladesmith out in your area any one of them would jump at the chance to make the blade for you, as long as you brought the rock Look up a guy named Little John out of Flagstaff Kaos forgery, and another gentleman I believe you'll have to find this guy on the net cause hes always mobile doing shows, is Iron Rose forgery. best I can help you with, Good luck on Excalibur, I still havent found a chunk that size

Lol Inertia, Cosmos, and Meteor hunting, Im there .