Anyone know anything about meteorites?

[Rob]

I decided that I wanted to buy one - I'm shopping on ebay, lots of different sizes, compositions, weights, etc... are available - many with documentation or from seemingly repubtable sellers who have sold LOTS of them...  Is there a market for fake meteorites? 

I'm just wondering what I can know to be a little more informed before I buy one.  Rareness or material isn't very important to me, I just decided I wanted to have a space rock on my desk and my main concern is that it be real and preferrably larger than a pebble.

Anyone?

Thanks in advance.

[DSJ™]

Well I'm not a rock hunter, just a space nut.    Lot's on the bay, guess you have to check the sellers out. Interesting stuff from this seller: raremeteorites

Learn about Meteorites

Meteorite Shop

nyrockman.com

Meteorites Plus

Other than the links, I don't know **** about them but meteor showers are cool to watch. 

[Rob]

Thanks for the links Dale.  I saw that one seller's stuff but it isn't (for the most part) quite what I'm looking for.

I'll look through those links today.

[Jesse James]

All I know is if you touch them you get this grass growing all over you and it itches and spreads when you scratch...  Then you turn into this plant thing.  Terrible way to go.

[Deanpaul]

I heard if you get the right kind you can use it can kill Superman. I think it was the green kind.

[Nicklab]

First off, make sure it isn't one of these:



 

Seriously, I've seen a major meteorite come down.  Apparently it was a fairly major one as it made some newspapers in the summer of 1994.  It was in Northern NY near the Canadian border.  Judging from the way it came down, it may have landed in Quebec since we were that close to the border.  Guestimates had the size of it at around the size of a car when it hit the atmosphere, and it burned very bright...especially since it was very easy to see at twilight.

I would be concerned about the legitimacy of some of these pieces.  Just knowing what kind of people troll eBay with illegitimate goods puts me on guard.  And you never know when someone might feel like they can make some money off of someone by selling a piece of iron pyrite that they put into a blast furnace.

[Rob]

Thanks for the advice.  I'm thinking that I'm going to drop about $50 or $60 when I finally pull the trigger on this... it seems like for $1 to $3 you can get little space pebbles, but $50 or $60 gets you something between golf ball size and tennis ball size.

I've noticed that lots of these sellers are meteorite dealers and many of them offer certificates... I don't know if that's proof or anything, so I'm going to pony up an extra few dollars and eventually buy from one with lots of feedback.  There seem to be a few that have 1500+ feedback ratings and I'm thinking they're probably pretty safe bets.