Comment on Man Keeps Rock For Years Thinking It's Gold. It Turned Out to Be Far More Valuable.
luciole@beehaw.org 11 months agoThe writing is at morning program levels of goofiness; it’s jarring. At 17 kg this meteorite would be worth over a million USD if it was gold. It’s like the writer is taking a piss at the poor guy who hoped to get some money out of it.
monsieur_jean@kbin.social 11 months ago
I'm not sure this meteorite is still on the market but meteorite prices vary widely depending on their type, rarity and history. It's a collector's market, and you would be surprised how much some people are willing to pay for a rare piece. This one seems to be a ordinary chondrite, so not something very rare. Those usually go for $1 per gram, so way less than gold. But rarer meteorites go for much, much more than that. Those from Mars or the moon for example can be sold for more than $1000 a gram. That much more than gold. As mentioned in the article another variable to the price would be historical significance. If this particular specimen can be linked to a specific sighting then the price can increase dramatically.
But yeah in this particular case it seems this is worth way less than gold. But hey, he might still get $10k for it? Still better than finding a $5 note on the ground eh... :D