That's awful if true. I guess technically the headline is still correct if you're talking about a millionaire in Rupiah terms (but 1 million Rupiah is only about USD 70). So is the man who became a millionaire (in dollar terms) the collector from the USA?
Sure, but I'm reasonably well off, not rich per se, but I am a SWE and I am able to save a good bit of money, and I would definitely have to think twice, and then think twice again, about spending $16K in one go on my hobby.
Unless you are talking about profit sharing, you would probably offer the lowest amount that you knew you could get away with so that your chances of flipping a profit is maximized.
There is nothing right / wrong about this. It is just human nature / market dynamics. Companies do it all the time when they hire us.
No, in fact, I would not. If I were a dealer in such things, I would offer a fair amount that lets me make money and isn't an insult to the seller like $16K is. Given that something like this probably has to be sold at auction, I would guess $400-500K would be probably the minimum fair offer that takes into account seller's fees and the uncertainty as to how much the thing will sell for, while still protecting the former owner's interest. In any case, I would certainly offer a large multiple of $16K. And, if I couldn't swing that kind of offer, I'd be pointing the seller to someone who can.
I doubt it's worth anywhere near a million pounds, but the article does say that the buyer immediately resold it to a collector, so I suspect it could have been worth considerably more than the $16 000 he got.
Based on the BBC article in the parent comment, the buyer wasn’t actually a buyer / reseller but just a middleman representing the collector. And he said that though he wasn’t privy to the price paid, it wasn’t $16K but was also not as much as $1M. He also said no meteorite is worth $1M.
That's business? Items of value are bought for a quarter at yard sales and flea markets all the time. The largest uncut Emerald in the world was bought out of a junk rock box at a rock show.
I just dream of a world where people are more honest than that. Just because that's the way it's been doesn't make it okay, nor right. People of integrity do not act this way. When I see people claiming it's alright to act this way, personally I make a note to stay far away from them, and especially to never do business with them.
Just lamenting the situation. Most people just taking advantage of each other for some extra digits in their bank account, and you either have to play the game or lose by default.
I don't believe that's true. I've found success in my personal life this way, and the journey is more important than the destination. Will success really feel like success if I achieve it in ways I think are morally wrong? I doubt it. It's true I can't eat my integrity, but I've not yet found myself in a situation where that is a factor.
Sure, but maybe there aren't many rare meteorite identification and pricing resources in Indonesian or the Malay-dialect he speaks? Or maybe his phone was out of data for the month? Personally I'm not sure I'd be able to identify a meteorite that fell on my house by googling it, I'd likely need to find an appraiser, which I'm assuming is much easier here in NYC than a village in North Sumatra. Clearly he wasn't aware of its worth if he sold it for $16k and it got flipped for $1+ million.
This coincidentally came in to my inbox two hours ago, which encapsulates my thought: "We cannot succeed if we only pursue our own success and prosperity, and not the well-being of others." - Thich Nhat Hanh
True. The winning business usually wins because of an advantage, be it better at negotiation, technically superior, higher standing with governing authority, etc. It seems like this buyer sees his advantage as knowing the true value of the meteorite and use that knowledge for his own profit.
So basically, on a planet whose surface is covered mainly by oceans, a meteorite fall in an urban area, is big enough not to disintegrate in the atmosphere and small enough not to blow the house and kill the man (I mean, what happened to craters?), and it suddenly makes him rich.
I'm not a religious person myself but I totally get why this man decided to build a church. I just hope he won't make it any weirder by proclaiming himself a chosen one or something, because there's room for that.
I don’t get the impression that the proposed church is connected in any way to the meteor or himself as a personality, but since you raise the point:
Some time around 54 AD, silversmiths started a riot in Ephesus because their trade in idols was being threatened by people listening to Paul’s teachings of Jesus as Christ; then Acts 19:35 says:
> And when the town clerk had quieted the crowd, he said, “Men of Ephesus, who is there who does not know that the city of the Ephesians is temple keeper of the great Artemis, and of the sacred stone that fell from the sky?
(The town clerk’s speech was largely, “c’mon, guys, you know better than to throw a tantrum/riot over this—use the legal system if you’ve got a complaint”.)
There’s some uncertainty as to exactly what that meant and referred to, but it would seem to suggest that a meteorite had come to be an important part of their worship.
"This stone [a black conical meteorite] is worshipped as though it were sent from heaven; on it there are some small projecting pieces and markings that are pointed out, which the people would like to believe are a rough picture of the sun, because this is how they see them."
"A six horse chariot carried the divinity [the meteorite], the horses huge and flawlessly white, with expensive gold fittings and rich ornaments. No one held the reins, and no one rode in the chariot; the vehicle was escorted as if the god himself were the charioteer. Elagabalus ran backward in front of the chariot, facing the god and holding the horses reins. He made the whole journey in this reverse fashion, looking up into the face of his god."
How did this rock made it to the surface! Most of them burn up in the atmosphere so this must have been pretty big originally. Any idea if others are following?
Well, we did just finish the Leonids meteor shower and the Geminids meteror shower is coming up in around a month, so the answer to your question would be "yes".
These Stones contain lots of organic matter and water, they will degrade quickly on earth. I suspect that research on these objects is very rare to have such a fresh sample. Probably it does not have this value because of rare metals or something, however because of its freshness has tremendous research value.
My understanding is meteorites have potentially high value because they're increasingly viewed as equivalent to samples collected from foreign planets/asteroids. Viewed through that lens, the value competes with the cost of retrieving a sample from wherever the meteorite formed.
IANAL and certainly not a tax lawyer but I believe this one is easy. In the US, the treasure trove case https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cesarini_v._United_States ... This also covers found precious metal on property and I'd imagine when these precious goods arrived isn't important, only when you found them.
I don't think this is right. Treasure trove covers finding money on your property. Refined precious metals (gold and silver particularly) are historically and legally treated as money for many purposes. But a gold mine isn't.
This seems to me more like discovering a gold mine. You can't buy things with your meteorite, or divide it indefinitely into smaller pieces that keep their value pro rata. Even if it was filled with platinum ore, you'd need to smelt and refine it.
The tax treatment of treasure trove in the US is different from the treatment of discovering gold or oil: in brief, you owe taxes when you find it, instead of when you sell it or its products.
Edit: another legal question, what if you don't own the mineral rights under your own home?
Here's a great in-depth news article from Science on a different carbonaceous chondrite strike, in Costa Rica, that touches on the same bargaining issue:
Is it more, less or equally probably to win the lottery? If it is the same or less there is no need to buy lottery tickets, we are all playing all the time :-)
Much less likely. Thousands of people win $1 million or more in lotteries every year. Only a handful have their houses hit by million-dollar meteorites.
Its more like everyone getting one lottery ticket for free, but with the option of buying more. Anyway I suspect people winning lotteries is more frequent that people having meteorites hit their house.
One lottery ticket for free for each property you own. I guess it could be ten, or zero.
I don't know what happens when a property is being rented though. E.g. Alice rents a house to Bob, they just signed the papers, suddenly they hear a crash and a meteorite lands on the table. Who can claim it?
"What about meteorites and their legal status? Legal solutions similar to the French one can be found in Morocco (the meteorites belong to those who find them), in Japan (the property of meteorites can be acquired by occupation), in England (the meteorite belongs to the landowner) or in the United States of America. However, any meteorite that has fallen on any part of the U.S. federal land (lands in the United States of America owned by the federal government) is insusceptible of private property, since it belongs de jure to the federal government."
>"Saya jual Rp200 juta, ternyata harganya Rp26 miliar"
>"I sold it for 200 million rupiah (~$16k USD), it turned out to be worth 26 billion rupiah (~$1.8M USD)"
>Uang itu pun sudah habis dibagi-bagi kepada keluarga, yatim piatu, gereja, dan perbaikan makam orangtua
>The money has been distributed towards families, orphans, churches and fixing parents' graves.
>"Uangnya sudah habis, cuma Rp200 juta"
>"The money is already gone, only 200 million rupiah"
>"Kalau betul (harganya) Rp26 miliar, saya merasa dibohongi. Saya kecewa."
>If it's true (that it's worth) 26 billion rupiah, I feel lied to. I am disappointed."
https://www.bbc.com/indonesia/majalah-54996882