Author name: James Tobin

After a couple months of discussing and planning the day of the Northern Nevada Meteorite Trip of 2019 arrived. The safari for me began at 4:45 AM on Sunday, June 16 when I started the car for the 500 mile trip up to Winnemucca where I would stay the night. Richard Garcia and Dave Libuszowski were staying there too at

This story begins a few months over two years ago as a simple ceramics project to make use of the small amount of lunar cutting dust I had saved from cutting the NWA 11273 meteorite. The first moon landing date is very significant for my family and I was trying to think of what could be done to commemorate the

It had been a few years since the last time that Paul Harris and I went to Franconia to hunt meteorites. But we were going with some old friends and new friends in the middle of April which we hoped would still be a cooler time of the year. Well, it turned out to be hot and much hotter than

Tucson Gem and Mineral show of 2019 was supposed to be a clone of the 2018 show for Paul Harris and myself. But the weather was to take that plan and turn it upside down. We headed out on Thursday morning for the drive to Blythe, California where we would have a nice dinner and stay in a hotel. It

We are still in the aftermath of moving. My casita (workshop) is still full of unopened boxes. But my main saw for meteorite work is set up again and the diamond lap is set up. So I can get back to work soon. As it turned out the day after I wrote those first two sentences I had to cut

It is near the end of the year and that is a time of reflection. I cut a great many meteorites this year. I cut what I seriously thought would be the largest lunar I would ever handle or certainly cut. It was a 1.7 kg stone and I cut beautiful thin slices. Since then many much larger have been

Have not been doing much meteorite related work for the last two months. I did cut several stones for a friend and they were interesting and rare types which always is exciting. I have gotten a couple updates from the lab where I have an amazing stone being classified. I think that work will be completed soon and it submitted

I finally got the opportunity to do something I have wanted to do for decades. Hunting a fresh fall within days of the bolide event has been one of my dreams. All the time I was working it was impossible to just pick up and go. And since I have been retired I was either out of town or heard

It has been exciting several months. I have done a great amount of meteorite cutting for our business and a couple friends. I have been finding as I cut that what the friends thought they had was not always what I found at the saw. The most enjoyable of these fortunate mistakes was a batch of stones that were supposed

I do not always report on the Tucson Gem and Mineral Show but this year I am. The show began for Paul and me when I left my house in my Jeep to pick him up on Wednesday. We were driving this year as we did last year. I had five boxes of my new book Drilling for Meteorites to

I do not cut meteorites for anyone other than our business as a general rule. But, my friend Jason Phillips of Rocks From Heaven, contacted me about a newly recovered meteorite from Mexico that he wanted to get cut open to see its insides. So I said, “Sure send some pieces, and I will slice them.” We had a conversation

I finished a two-year long project a few days ago. It is a new book and it is about Meteor Crater again. Yes I know I am in a rut. But I am not going to talk much about the book itself. What I want to tell you this month is the story of the writing of the book. It

Years ago I collected many more things. As a child, I collected stamps and coins. As an adult, I have collected tektites, antique balance scales, civil war artifacts, fossils, meteorites and more. I have reduced my collecting in the last couple decades to very slowly adding some additional meteorites only. I have stopped buying anymore impact breccias or shattercones from

The middle of the summer issue of Meteorite Times is always the hardest for me to find something to write. The gem show is over, and it is too hot to go hunting for meteorites in the desert. The world of meteorites is several systems that interconnect and work together for the most part. They do not always work as