Mars Meteorites Become Hot Item Outpacing Price of Gold

What is nearly ten times more valuable than an ounce of gold and is rarely found on our planet but can be bought off of eBay? A meteorite from Mars that you can verifiably connect back to a specific meteor showers that have happened now and in the past.

The news these days is full of all kinds of meteor finds and the amazing things that are discovered because of them. Just recently there has been a new ancient mineral called Panguite discovered from a 1969 Meteor from Mexico, Extensive Water on Mars was confirmed from shergottite meteorites and in 1996 evidence from NASA that there was in fact primitive bacterial life on Mars.

This interest in meteorites for discoveries that literally change science textbooks and the facts that people know, have pushed meteor market values up. Any person with some money and some know-how can jump on eBay and find valuable meteors and hold them for investment value and family legacy hand-me-downs.

The latest meteors flying into Earth’s atmosphere from Mars landed on Earth in July 2011 in Morocco. This was the last time since the 1960′s that a meteorite from Mars was confirmed to have landed on Earth from extensive testing. Those meteorites were gobbled up by meteorite dealers around the world and sold to enthusiasts, scientists, museums and even scientists at NASA. Before these meteorites were officially confirmed and classified they were being shuffled around for large prices by the ounce.

The Daily Mail reports that dealer Darryl Pitt is actually selling ounces of the meteorite that fell in January 2011 in Morocco for around $11,000 to $22,500 an ounce. That puts the value and price of these meteors at nearly 10 – 20 times more than the price of gold. The martian rock is more than 1,000,000 times more rare than Gold on earth so you can see where the logic is here. The total amount of Mars rock available on Earth is said to be around 240 pounds according to experts. The amount of Gold that has been mined on Earth in around 200 yearsis about 10 billion ounces of Gold or about 625,000,000 pounds. Those are some crazy numbers but that means the amount of martian rock on Earth is around .000000384 percent of Gold that has been produced in 200 years. For smart investors, science nerds and wealthy consumers meteors are the new investment that can bring yields much higher than a typical investment in things like Gold, Silver and stocks.

Just a quick look on eBay will reveal some of those potential stumbling blocks for meteor enthusiasts and amateur buyers alike. Now I don’t proclaim to be a meteor expert on buying or prices, but when I see listings like the one below, it makes me think you better look really close. This meteor that is being sold is claimed to be from the Moroccan Meteor that fell to Earth in January 2011 and is called a Tissint Martian Meteorite Fragment with Fusion Crust. It’s weight? 3.18g and it’s being sold for $3,180.

If you remember the story of Darryl Pitt he was selling the meteor at $11,000 – $22,5000 an ounce. 3.18 grams = 0.1122 ounces or about 1/10th an ounce. That tells me something that weighs about 3.18 grams should have a going price on the original high market value of around $1,234.20 – $2,524.50. So the mini-piece of this famous meteor chunk from Mars is going for around a $655.50 to $1,945.80 meteor ripoff premium. Just goes to show, if you’re a bottom of the market buyer you are probably getting ripped off. Be careful, but keep your eyes open, the meteor market is hot and definitely outpacing the price of Gold most of the time.

Mars Meteorites Landed in Morocco Last Summer: Scientists

The martians have landed! Or at least their rocks have. Scientists have decided 15 pounds of rock in that landed in Morocco during a meteor shower last summer came from Mars. This is only the 5th time fresh Martian rocks have been found and chemically determined on earth, the last being in 1962, as spacecrafts have to date been unable to capture rock samples from the red planet. Martian rock is more than a million times rarer than gold and meteorite dealers are selling the rocks for over $20,000. Russian space officials recently accussed theUS of zapping a vessel headed to collect samples from Mars as NASA is planning a 2018 mission for the same purpose. Let the space race 2.0 begin.

Police dash cam of Meteor over Edmonton, Canada

Meteor falling from the sky in Edmonton, Canada. Filmed about 5:30pm Thursday November 20th 2008.