END PIECE OF A TRANSITIONAL SEYMCHAN METEORITE,

END PIECE OF A TRANSITIONAL SEYMCHAN METEORITE
DISCOVERED IN SIBERIA, 1967; MODERN CUTTING
Featuring an aggregate of olivine at the upper right margin, this transitional Seymchan meteorite also contains gem-quality olivine crystals known as peridot (the birthstone of August). The border framing the specimen was masked and polished during preparation emulating what the preferred style of museum curatorship in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The material’s crystalline structure can also be discerned on the reverse, which is naturally burnished in a deep gun-metal patina. The reverse is also studded with extruding olivine crystals.
4 x 3¼ x 1¼in. (10.4 x 8.4 x 3.4cm.)
742g

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Lot Essay

Endpiece of a Transitional Seymchan Meteorite with Interior and Exterior Surfaces Revealed
Less than 0.2% of all meteorites are pallasites, the most beautiful extraterrestrial substance known. It was in the 1960s that two large metallic masses were found in a streambed in a part of Siberia made infamous as the remote location of Stalin’s gulags. Identified as meteorites, they were named Seymchan for a nearby town. The small crystalline fragments seen here are particles of the mantle that were immersed in the upper portion of the molten nickel-iron core and then cooled very slowly. Unlike the vast majority of other pallasitic meteorites, the dispersion of olivine crystals in Seymchan is extremely heterogeneous. Some specimens are olivine rich and some are olivine poor; some specimens have no olivine whatsoever. Seymchan meteorites also possess what is among the more resplendent coarse octahedral crystalline patterns. Pallasites are the most dazzling of all meteorites and this is a superb example.

Christie's would like to thank Dr. Alan E. Rubin at the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics, University of California, Los Angeles for his assistance in preparing this catalogue note.