Mar 30, 2009: Space Junk

There's been a lot of space junk in the news lately, but that's man made junk.
This space junk is pre-man made junk, in fact it's pre-man.

Tom Lynch paid $10 for an 50 lb hunk of metal at a garage sale and used it to keep his grandson's basketball hoop from blowing over.

Recently, he saw a show about meteorites on the Travel Channel and realized that's probably what he had. It was curious, he thought, that the thing never oxidized in the weather. Following advice from the TV show, he held a magnet up to the object and it stuck.

He took his 4.6 billion-year-old find to the Milwaukee Public Museum and then to Chicago's Field Museum last month. The scientists got excited. Yes, they said, it's a meteorite. He got one offer from a collector for $10,000, but soon had a sense from Internet research that a meteorite with this unique basket shape might fetch closer to $100,000.

Before he could get too excited, a call came from Jim DuFoe, a minerals expert he had consulted. Bad news, DuFoe said. The meteorite was stolen in 1968 from the Meteor Crater Visitor Center near Flagstaff. He had himself a hot rock.

Mr Lynch's reaction?

"We can't sell what we don't own."

That's commendable, even though they now know he has it, he could say it was stolen and get a fair buck for it on the black market.
He plans to drive it out to Flagstaff and return it personally.

Think they'll let him in for free? :haha:

Link

Yep, cause he could've diced it up.. They sell for much more in leeetle pieces.

Even 50lbs of scrap iron is worth a bit .

" ...call came from Jim DuFoe, a minerals expert he had consulted. Bad news, DuFoe said. The meteorite was stolen in 1968 from the Meteor Crater Visitor Center near Flagstaff."

And just how the hell did he know it was stolen from there at that time? I know how they can figure out where it came from, but how did they know it was 1968? Screw that, sell it. Highest bidda...

TheMercenary;551008 wrote:

And just how the hell did he know it was stolen from there at that time? I know how they can figure out where it came from, but how did they know it was 1968? Screw that, sell it. Highest bidda...

:confused: They had it in 1967, it was gone in 1969?

Does honesty figure anywhere in your world, Merc? Just askin'. :headshake

Pie;551039 wrote:

:confused: They had it in 1967, it was gone in 1969?

Does honesty figure anywhere in your world, Merc? Just askin'. :headshake

Of course, I was jking. Jeezus fooking christ.

How did they know they had it was my question. Looks like a pretty big place to know were a single bit of a million bits of rock came from.

There's a small museum/visitor's center there. It was in the museum.

Oh, sorry.

They have a museum with proper displays -- the meteor wasn't just laying about in the crater!

glatt;551047 wrote:

There's a small museum/visitor's center there. It was in the museum.

Well that makes complete sense. Obviously he needs to return it to it's rightful owner. At first read it sounded like someone walked out into the crater and picked it up. In 1967-8 I doubt they had the controls like they have in many places, i.e. Dinosaur National Monument, that they once had.

"What's that you say? Meteorite? No, no don't know anything about any meteorite. You must be looking for another Tom Lynch."

Meanwhile, back on eBay..."For sale by eBay user 'notthattomlynch'...

...and now his poor grandson's basketball hoop will blow over again. Won't somebody PLEASE think of the children???

paging Monsieur Mangetout, recipe needed in the IOTD section...