Unclassified Meteorites for Sale

Unclassified meteorites are meteorites that have not been analyzed by a meteoriticist, approved by the Nomenclature Committee (NomComm), published in the Meteoritical Bulletin (MetBull), or some combination thereof. There are many reasons to not classify a meteorite including for example the specimen being too small, the cost of classification being too high, or the specimen has aesthetic value that would be impaired should material be removed. Even if a specimen has been classified, that classification is not final until it has been published in the MetBull. There are many meteorites that have not been published or have been published as “provisional” due to the type specimen not being deposited or the NomComm not approving it for publication. A buyer can be assured that a specimen is in fact a meteorite, even without having been classified, by purchasing from a trusted dealer and through visual aspects that are clearly associated with meteorites like having crust, orientation, visible chondrules, magnetic susceptibility, etc.