Recently found, fresh & affordable sized
Nantan iron meteorites
for the trade --- an great investment opportunity!

A. B.

Background Information
Nantan iron meteorites represent one of the rare witnessed iron meteorite falls in the world. The fall was recorded vividly -- “During summertime in May of Jiajing 11th year, stars fell from the northwest direction, five to six fold long, waving like snakes and dragons. They were as bright as lightning and disappeared in seconds". Fell in Nantan (25 degrees 6' N, 107 degrees 42'E) in 1516, they were much later found by local farmers in 1958 when China needed a lot of steel to push the country "Great Leap Forward" advocated by Mao Zetung. They have coarse octahedral structure (Photo C & D on next page) and contain 92.35% iron & 6.96% nickel, belonging to IIICD classification of Wasson et al (1980)’s. Most Nantan meteorites weight 150 ~ 1500 kg. Due to the humid condition, smaller pieces buried in soils of lower valleys have been extensively weathered and oxidized into limonite.

Affordable Sizes of Meteorites Recovered Recently
During the past few months, metal detectors were used to search for iron meteorites at the Nantan strewn field. Some fresh and small meteorites have been found at higher slopes or hilltops. Most small sizes are 1 to10 pounds (450 ~ 4,5000 grams), black (Photo B), some with nice thumb prints or fusion crust (Photo A). These are affordable sizes for most collectors and therefore in high demand. It is a great opportunity for dealers to buy small and fresh individuals of Nantan meteorites. Some pieces are 20 ~ 100 pounds.

Stabilizing Nantan Meteorites
As you know, oxidation is a common problem and a major challenge meteorite dealers and collectors have to face. We have seen a lot of corroded Nantan, Campo del Cielo, Odessa and Canyon Diablo specimens. John Walters, editor of Voyage! magazine, has successfully found some effective ways to protect meteorites. “A small Nantan, badly weathered, has had its erosion stopped” by use of a protectant spray. There are some well stabilized Nantan iron meteorite fragments (Photo C) in the market, clearly illustrating the coarse octahedral structure of Widmanstatten pattern, sold for 60-80 cents per gram. The dealer claims that these pieces will be long-term rust-free and popular in the jewelry industry. We have also done some experiments on protecting Nantan iron meteorites. With protectants from Home Depot and Uncommon Conglomerates, we have successfully kept large etched slices (Photo D) and small whole pieces in good shapes for the past few years.

C. D.
We will provide further information to our customers.

Wholesale Prices
We try to import all the nice and small Nantan meteorites found in the source. Due to our limited financial resources, I’d like to sell some fast at low wholesale prices. We want only $25-35/LB for the top-quality pieces, depending on quantity of order:

$50/LB for retail
$35/LB for 10~50 pounds ($77/kg for less than 25 kg)
$30/LB for 50~100 pounds ($66/kg for 25~45 kg)
$28/LB for 100~200 pounds ($62/kg for 45~90 kg)
$25/LB for over 200 pounds ($55/kg for over 90 kg)

Large pieces (100~800 kg) and large slices (2,000~8,000 grams) are also available for museums or advanced collectors.

Great Wall Consulting & Trading
P. O. Box 33992 Northglenn, CO 80233-0992
Tel & Fax: (303) 255-7148, Mobile Phone: 720-218-8486
greatwallc@aol.com www.greatwallct.com