Welcome to Tnet. You are wise to seek advice before parting with your money (albeit you already seem to have made one purchase). The good things about advice are that it often comes for free and, even when you have it, you don’t have to accept it. I hope you accept my advice as a long-time collector and meteorite enthusiast, which is as follows:
I would be HIGHLY suspicious of someone who claims to have “come across a large group of meteorites” and is seeking to sell them, unless:
- They are from a locality that represents a known strewnfield.
- And the person concerned has some ‘credentials’, either of a scientific nature or by reputational recognition in the collector community.
- Or is an IMCA member
- Or can provide documentary evidence from professional testing by a laboratory with appropriate credentials.
I have said it frequently here that meteorites cannot usually be identified from pictures alone, but that pictures can sometimes suggest when specimens are not meteorites. My strong feeling is that the specimens in your pictures are not meteorites.
I would add that anyone with meteoritic knowledge would know that finds such as those claimed by your seller would, if they are meteorites, substantially increase in value if they were submitted for typological assessment and (if appropriate) granted a formal name in the MetSoc database as new finds. Only a fool or a charlatan would sell them without such attributions.
