I thought I'd add a few thoughts on the auction. Several BIMS members made it to the auction in person. We met up the previous evening at Rob's house for the Fernlea BBQ. A relaxed and pleasant affair, I must thank Rob and his family for their hospitality. The following morning we began at National Museum of Scotland, where Peter Davidson was kind enough to show us around the newly redeveloped museum and off-site collection centre, I'll post more about this when I've sorted the photographs out. We then made our way to the auction house, with sufficient time to register and view the collection before the auction began. 101 lot's were to go under the hammer, but thankfully not in the way many historic meteorites seem to be before reaching ebay these days!
There was a good crowd present in the room and as things got underway it seemed the auctioneer was taking his time to allow those unfamiliar with the procedures of an auction to get up to speed (I was one of those people!). The auction began with five Sikhote-Alin specimens that all did well, only one failing to reach the lower estimate (by just £10) and two exceeding the upper estimate. My impression overall was that most specimens achieved good prices although, as previously, the bigger specimens were often where a good deal was to be had. The first big specimen was an exquisite 9.5kg Gibeon, somebody will have been happy when they won it for £1200. Don't forget the buyers premium when you check the auction prices though, the buyer will actually have paid £1560 for this first class Gibeon, which still only represents about US$0.27/gram. As in the previous auction the Gibeon rings did very well (I would have said "surprisingly" well, as it surprised me last time, but it is clear they are popular items).
A few other random points taken from the notes I made at the time: The Belle Plaine piece (lot 62) was an exceptional full slice and to my mind one of the bargains of the auction, it sold for £550, equivalent to under US$2/g, a similar but slightly smaller slice is currently offered elsewhere on the web for US$2600. The Bechar 001 also found a new home at a bargain price. The Hambleton main mass appeared unsold at the end of the auction, but now appears sold at £9000. I cannot help wonder where it has gone to and I genuinely hope it finds it's way into a museum collection. As previously some of the lunars reached high prices as the audience for this auction extended well beyond the usual collectors. Lot 40 was the NWA stone with "Michael Jackson Interest", after some intense bidding on the telephones this reached an impressive £1100. The Bristol impact layer (lot 95) did very well, reaching £380 for 36g in four fragments. Lot 91, a 1.3g part-slice of Acfer 209 (CR2) reached a surprising £400 against an estimate of £100-150 (US$646/g for those keeping count). The auction finished on a high with lot 101, a 226g etched end-cut of the scarce Algerian IIIA iron Zerhamra, found in 1967. The estimate was £400-500, below the price this material had been offered at Fernlea previously, but I certainly wasn't ready for the fierce bidding that resulted in a hammer price of £2400 (~US$22/g).
There were plenty of bids taking place from those present in the room, but the majority came from the internet and telephones. Regarding the prices achieved a comment was made on the meteorite central mailing list that "I guess in the UK market people can spend some coins", but I have no doubt that a fair number of the commission, internet and telephone bids were likely to be coming from overseas. This was the first "proper" auction I attended, but I thoroughly enjoyed the experience. I've no idea if the UK will ever see another meteorite auction, but if it does then I'll definitely see you there!
Matt.
Note: it is entirely possible I've made errors in quoting numbers and doing the calculations in this post, please don't quote my values elsewhere and if you use them in any way please do so with care. I will not be held responsible for loss/damage/etc/etc....
