Some high-end watches have very unusual dials-in particular, I’ve seen dials made from a thin section of an iron meteorite. They look kinda cool-but I thought iron meteorites were very rare. Anyway, can you just slice them up? isn’t the material pretty brittle?
Not so rare.
You can buy em on line.
Do you have a link? Sliced, polished cross sections of meteorites are very beautiful.
I believe that’s one of the ways to identify a meteorite: slice it open and etch it with acid to reveal the interior crystalline structure.
However, I do not claim to be a meteographer.
Found a nice Rolex on ebay. VERY beautiful. The crystalline structure is too cool.
Try Jerry’s Rock and Gem. They don’t have any currently on their site but I was in there the other day and saw several nice meteorite slices. So maybe if you contact them, they can give you a price list of what they have. Be prepared for sticker shock. As small as they are, they carry a hefty price tag. If they didn’t, I’d have several of them by now.
There’s also Gotrocks in Seattle. I haven’t been there in years so can’t confirm if they’re still in business this Sunday night but this link has their phone number and address if you’d like to try to get in touch with them. Gotrocks is where I saw my first real live meteorite slices ever. So beautiful and fascinating to look at!
Woolly Mammoth Rock shop has them. I love that place.
“Widmanstätten” is, I believe, the name of the distinctive pattern.
Meteorites are rare, but not that rare - I have a knife made of several different types (see the sgian dubh about halfway down*) and a small collection of uncut iron fragments, some of which are probably worth less than a buck a gram. I’d guess that the face on many of those watches are about as thin as it’s possible to cut iron with a good diamond saw.
I’ve shopped with these folks before, if you’re looking for a hunk o’ rock without any timekeeping abilities.
- I don’t know if Dan is still in the business, but he did such great work that I’m loath to show a pic of it without giving him the props he deserves. That’s a picture of the one he made for me, to the best of my knowledge he hasn’t made another since (as he claims he seriously undercharged me for the amount of work that the thing required)