Has anyone found meteorites and is there a market for them?

[abrakdabra]

Hey, I haven't even touched a detector yet but I have a medium quality one on order (Bounty Hunter Lone Star). I'm curious about meteorites and whether you experienced detectorists have found and sold same? Or is it 'spaced out' to expect to find metal from space and sell same?

 

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[Lowbatts]

Howdy Abrakdabra!
Given the rate of fall of small space rocks over history, it would be perfectly conceivable that one lands/has landed on the ground every few acres or so over the course of history.
I've found one and think I have a total of three. The one I believe is valid bounces between iron/nickel on my Fisher CZ, which is the composition of the most common shooting stars I believe. Found in a cornfield in an otherwise clean area, it stood out from the other small rocks there as well both in terms of appearance and weight.
Don't know what they are worth, but heard that some sell for mighty good prices. I'll wait until I find a few more before thinking about selling though.

 

[Buck]

yea the best part about the car that it was worth about a 1000.00 before

 

[coinshooter]

No, their not worth anything. Just a bunch of junk metal. By the way, I do metal recycling, so if you find any of those pieces of junk, just send them my way.

 

[abrakdabra]

I'm surprised more people haven't responded. Maybe a lot of dectorists DO FIND meteorites but don't recognize them as meteorities. Just figure they're hunks of scrap metal. I went to webcrawler.com and found sites with photos of meteorites for sale. There IS a market!

 

[bakergeol]

Abrakdabra
I believe you are right. Most people out there can not identify common rock types must less meteorites.

There was an interesting post about meteorite hunting in one of the nugget hunting forums a while back. Most of the meteorites this guy was finding came from previously dug debris. The nugget hunters would detect a meteorite and leave as it looked like another "hot rock".
I guess a little meteorite identification knowledge wouldn't hurt.

George

 

[abrakdabra]

Well, it happened to me. I was digging up pottery shards from six hundred years ago and found a piece of metal with a tortured shape, all contorted and, now that I recall, a flowing shape that could have been shaped by the atmosphere IF it was a METEORITE. I was looking at the ground thinking it was a bit of ancient iron hardware that had melted and reformed when a building had burned down. Because the area had a foundation, by a long dried up river, and I think it was a temple. The locals, I hear, simply say it was a place where pottery was made. It never occured to me it could have been a METEORITE! Why not; it's an OLD planet!

 

[Albert076]

They don't woth much...

 

[zdawg3579]

I'm surprised more people haven't responded. Maybe a lot of dectorists DO FIND meteorites but don't recognize them as meteorities. Just figure they're hunks of scrap metal. I went to webcrawler.com and found sites with photos of meteorites for sale. There IS a market!

I've personally never found any, but I know they can be worth more than gold. It just depends on their composition. Btw I can't imagine someone not knowing, if you pick it up they're suppose to be like three times as heavy as you'd expect.

 

[CoinandRelicMan]

Meteor-"wrongs" are much more common than Meteor-"rights" for real but hey I had one guy who was a so called expert and all the stuff he had looked like so much junk to me, to tell the truth ! He sure wanted my Meteor-"wrong" badly tho !! Can guess what I told him next, No Way guy !! So beware of anyone who wants your wrong type find too badly, con men are common just like meteor-"wrongs" !!