Chondrite – L/LL6; Navajo County, Arizona (34° 54'N, 110° 11'W)

Large fragment showing both the fresh black fusion crust melted during the fiery descent through Earth’s atmosphere, with old collection label from the Lafayette College Mineral Collection, Pennsylvania, specimen number M242. This is a pedigreed piece of an historic American meteorite fall.

The Holbrook meteorite fell near the Aztec train station, six miles east of the town of Holbrook, Arizona. Witnesses saw a spectacular fireball traveling west to east, passing over Flagstaff and Winslow, detonating high above Holbrook around 6:10 pm. A family living at the train station reported that “stones were raining from the sky” and nearly the entire population of Holbrook rushed to the site to collect meteorites. An estimated 100,000 stones fell. Most were tiny, weighing from a few milligrams to several kilograms. Small stones are the norm, larger stones are rare. Ward’s Scientific, an American scientific supply company, bought most of the stones from this major fall and sold them to universities, museums, and collectors worldwide. Holbrook is one of the most well-distributed meteorites in history. There is hardly a collection in existence without examples of this historic meteorite.

Christie's would like to thank Dr. Alan E. Rubin at the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences, University of California, Los Angeles for his assistance in preparing this catalogue.
80 mm x 70 mm x 70 mm
430g.

Lafayette College Mineral Collection, Pennsylvania

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