Sikhote-Alin Shrapnel

These resulting angular fragments starkly illuminate the catastrophic forces inflicted upon incoming meteorites: melted, torn, and blasted, they so resembled the remnants of wartime bombing that they were named shrapnel. Nearly all recovered Sikhote-Alin specimens were cleaned by the finders. Some were wire-brushed, others were tumbled. Unfortunately sometimes in the cleaning process finer surface details were lost forever. Pristine as-found examples, such as some of the ones listed here are extremely rare and much coveted by collectors. With a rich orange-ochre natural patina, these battered visitors from space are an eerie unaltered survivor from the greatest meteorite fall in recorded history.