Whereas the gem industry has laboratories like the Gem Institute of America that will examine and certify a gem, there's nothing comparable to that for meteorites. The market for meteorites, he says, "is a bit like the Wild West." His fellow dealers he calls "a bunch of pirates." No independent authority guarantees a space rock's authenticity. All you have to go on, as an amateur, is the reputation of the seller. How do you know if what you're buying is really a meteorite? You don't, says Twelker. One variety, found in China, "just rusts into a pile of oozing mush." Another, from Kansas, sports beautiful crystals but it, too, may rust and the crystals pop out. On Earth some meteorites are more unstable than others, he says.
If you put your space rock on your coffee table, it may disintegrate or rust." "The consumer needs to understand that these rocks come from space," says Eric Twelker, founder and proprietor of The Meteorite Market, oldest such marketplace on the Internet. Worse, you can buy a bona fide meteorite, and, by failing to show it proper care, see it disintegrate into stardust before your very eyes. You can be hoodwinked by unscrupulous meteorite dealers. Want one? Experts on buying, selling and collecting interstellar rocks advise caution. Even small fragments, they say, could be worth thousands of dollars. 19, 2013 - Meteorite hunters are converging on Chelyabinsk, Russia, seeking pieces of a space rock that exploded above that city last week, injuring 1,200 people.