'Antiques Roadshow' guest brings a meteorite rock and expert gave it a staggering valuation
Items such as a painting or collectibles are expected to turn up on “Antiques Roadshow,” but a guest bringing a rock is unusual. But such a thing was appraised on the show, and it was literally out of this world. The item in question was a piece from a meteorite that struck the planet in 1948. The guest claimed that it had originally fallen on a farm owned by his relatives.
The guest was a geologist and said that it was one of the main reasons why he became a geologist. He said that this was a stony meteor, and even then, it was rare in that category. The expert was fascinated upon seeing it and said that this was a rather large piece of the meteorite. She also believed that the value of the piece was more than what the whole meteor, weighing 2300 lbs, had sold for.
“This small piece, we all feel, conservatively would have an estimate of at least $5,000 to $7,000 at auction,” the expert said. “Without someone who specializes specifically in the sale of meteorites to analyze the exact contents of this, this piece, it could be much, much more than that.” This was encouraging for the guest to hear, since he bumped into the rock on his relative’s farm by chance.
The meteorite had hit the planet in 1948 in Norton County, Kansas. The meteorite itself, as per the guest, was bought for $3,600, which is a lot less than what this smaller fragment was appraised at. The guest’s grandparents had kept this fragment in a small box in their closet. He claimed that when he was younger, he would sneak into their room and glance at this object from outer space.
Having meteorites on “Antiques Roadshow” might be rare, but it has happened more than once. In a different episode of the show, a woman brought a meteorite, which was a lot rarer than the one mentioned earlier. She claimed that her husband loved collecting meteorites and that particular one was the largest he’d ever collected. Unlike the previous one, this one was a stony iron meteorite, the rarest kind.
The expert claimed that less than 1% of all meteorites ever found on Earth were stony irons. This one also had crystals forming all around it, making it even more valuable to collectors. When asked where her husband found it, the guest said Glorietta, New Mexico. This made the expert believe that it was a fragment from the Glorietta Mountain Fall, a rather famous instance of a meteor crashing into the Earth.
When it was time to place a value on the rock from outer space, the expert took into account how rare this type of meteorite was and the fact that it had marks of crystallization. He said that its value for insurance purposes would be $20,000. That’s a huge figure for a piece of rock.
