The Moon is among the rarest substances on our planet. Less than 2500 kilograms of the Moon is known to exist on Earth and every single bit could fit in the back of a small pick-up truck. While Apollo astronauts returned with 382 kg of Moon rocks, not one milligram of this material is available for private ownership. As for the nearly 2000 kg of lunar meteorites, i.e., pieces of the Moon ejected off the lunar surface by asteroid impacts (and nearly all of the craters on the Moon are the result of such hypervelocity collisions), a good deal of that material is also untouchable as a result of its residency in the world’s great museums and research institutions.

Scientists identify Moon rocks by specific textural, mineralogical, chemical, and isotopic signatures. Many of the common minerals found on Earth’s surface are rare or absent on the Moon and some lunar minerals are unknown on Earth. In addition, Moon rocks contain gases captured from the solar wind with isotope ratios very different from the same gases found on Earth.

As one would expect, many of the Moon rocks returned by Apollo missions are nearly identical to lunar meteorites — and such is the case with NWA 12691.

For a meteorite to be officially considered a meteorite it must be published in the scientific journal of record, the Meteoritical Bulletin. The protocol commences with the analysis of a specimen which then undergoes peer review by scientists on the Nomenclature Committee of the Meteoritical Society. As there needs to be a system to identify specimens, the Committee chooses a name for the rock after the location to which it was “delivered,” (e.g., a city, village, mountain, river, district, etc.). In a desert, where there are few distinguishing landmarks, meteorites are named for the designated region with sequential numbering. Found in 2017 by desert nomads, NWA 12691 is the 12,691st specimen to be assigned a number after it was recovered from the North West African corridor of the Sahara Desert, analyzed and approved for publication.

NWA 12691 was part of an ancient strewn field of a large lunar meteorite shower straddling the Mauritanian, Western Saharan and Algerian borders — an event responsible for more than 10% of all known lunar meteorites.

From a curatorial standpoint, it’s only because of the relatively large amount of material recovered in this megafind that there was an opportunity to fashion a limited number of spheres small and large, as the trimming, grinding and polishing regimens result in a great deal of material loss. The beads offered here are from the corner trims of the lunar cubes from which spheres are fabricated. In fact, several of the beads in this bracelet are from the same Moon rock as lot 23.

Each of these 20 beads is a pristine sample of the Moon; each bead is approximately 8.20 millimeters in diameter and weighs approximately 3.66 carats. The beads were painstakingly fashioned by artisan Martin Roberts, a master sphere fabricator and protégé of Dr. Robert Ritchie, author of the standard source “The Sphere Maker’s Craft”.

As is the case with all lunar feldspathic breccias, the beads are composed of fragments of olivine, pigeonite, augite, ilmenite and signature white anorthite — which is rare on Earth but common on the Moon. The different minerals and lithologies were naturally bound together by a melt of lunar regolith, the result of repeated asteroid impacts on the lunar surface prior to the collision responsible for launching NWA 12691 to Earth.

Now offered is a bracelet made of the Moon, one of the rarest substances on Earth and the most sublime and enthralling object in our night sky.

The official classification of the material from which these beads were hewn was performed by Dr. Anthony Irving, one of the world’s foremost classifiers of lunar and Martian meteorites. His work underwent peer review prior to publication in the 108th edition of the Meteoritical Bulletin.

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.
The bracelet is 210mm in length (8.25 inches). Each of the 20 beads measures approximately 8.20 mm in diameter and weighs 3.66 carats.