What is better than a witnessed fall? An LL3 witnessed fall! And what’s better than that? An LL3 witnessed fall that crashed through a house! And adding icing to this particular cosmic cake are the facts, that the meteorite has an extremely low total known weight (made worse through years of bad curation), and it is the only witnessed fall in its country’s history. Oh, and on top of all that it fell on New Years Eve and is world’s only fall on that day.

According to the standard report, at 3:45 in the afternoon on December 31, 1921, a single stone of 1100g fell through the roof of a “hut” not far from the University of St. Joseph in Beirut, Lebanon. But like all meteorite falls, there is more to the story.

The Catalogue of Meteorites lists only a single entry in any collection anywhere in the world, a 51g specimen. If that is really the case, then over the past 90 years, 79% of the initial mass has been lost. The one and only collection entry in the Catalogue for Beyrout is the Natural History Museum in Paris, a location that is quite understandable due to history.

Interestingly, the entry in the Catalogue of Meteorites lists Beyrout, Lebanon as falling in Syria. Had the fall happened two years earlier, the actual country of landing would not be in question, and would without a doubt be Syria. But that neck of the global woods was in turmoil back then. Not that I was around at that time, but someone was and here’s what the CIA Factbook has to say about it:

Following World War I, France acquired a mandate over the northern portion of the former Ottoman Empire province of Syria. The French separated out the region of Lebanon in 1920, and granted this area independence in 1943.

Clear as mud, right. I guess with that kind of explanation either Syria or Lebanon will work as the home country for Beyrout. Heck, I’m still trying to figure out what “acquired a mandate” means. But since the land of Lebanon was identified as separate in 1920 and the fall was in 1921 I think this meteorite should be rightfully claimed by Lebanon.

Either way, its understandable how the only sample listed in a collection happens to be in a French museum.

Beyrout’s entry in the Meteoritical Bulletin lists it as an LL3.8 with a total known weight of a mere 1100 grams, while the Catalogue of Meteorites adds, “only two small fragments preserved.”

I’ve avoided adding small specimens to my meteorite cabinet since making the arguably brutal collecting shift exclusively to historic witnessed falls. At eleven years shy of a century being historic was not an issue for Beyrout, and the fact Beyrout is a hammer did help, but a sub-two gram slice was pushing my unwritten collecting rules. Then again, specimens such as Beyrout come along only rarely if ever in the big picture of meteorite collecting so acquiring it allowed me to question my motives while passing on it would have set me up for later regrets.

Regardless of its diminutive size, as an LL3.8 Beyrout does have some great chondrule activity. I just wish there was more surface area to enjoy. Don’t get me wrong, I am thankful to be the temporary caretaker of this locality, but a larger slice would have certainly been welcome and easier to justify given my picky collecting habits.

So how did this piece of Lebanese history come to into my collection in the first place? It just took a few bits of luck for both a long-time meteorite dealer and for me. The story picks up at the Denver show back in the early 1990s. Apparently a professor from the University of Beirut with more than a passing interest in meteorites just happened to be in Colorado during the show. And this professor just happened to have with him a small piece of the Beyrout meteorite. And the dealer mentioned above just happened to cross paths with the professor while at the show. The professor was actually more interested in a trade for his precious Beyrout, but material as rare as Beyrout requires an equally rarified specimen in exchange. Luckily in this situation a large sum of cash carried the same significance as rare meteorite material.

The slice of Beyrout remained in the personal collection of the meteorite dealer for over a decade before a slice was removed. With my nose always sniffing for rare material as the meteorite winds drift around, I jumped on the piece the instant it became available.

Since then, a pleasant swing in the trends of meteorite collecting over the past few years has generated an exaggerated interest in the so-called hammer stones. Not only have the prices for such samples skyrocketed, but the general awareness of hammers as a collecting genera–as well as their routinely small TKWs–have led these special localities to increase in monetary value by a magnitude or two…or even in some cases three!

Alas, with all explosive price amplifications, there is an ugly side to meteorite collecting in that some unscrupulous collector-dealer-robber-barons (CDRBs) have gotten a hold of important meteorite material including rare historics, or hammers (or both) and are offering millispecs on eBay from a seemingly never ending supply. Of course if one of these CDRBs got their greedy hands on, say a couple grams of Ensisheim or Orgueil, and broke the grams into milligram or centigram pieces, the singularly rare sample is now dozens of nothing more than souvenir meteorite samples barely related to the locality upon which it claims ancestry.

Lets take a quick detour to do the numbers. Imagine a two-gram slice of Beyrout. Hit it with a hammer. The two gram piece is now 2000 milligrams. Many of the CDRBs offer samples of about 0.05g. There are forty 0.05g samples in 2g. If the CDRB sold each millispec for say $20, then the total selling price (40 times $20) would be about $800 (not subtracting the eBay and PayPal fees). At an average of $10/sample (not unusual with typical market saturation and limited interest given the small size), the total selling price is $400. Of course some of the first samples to be offered my actually fetch upwards of three figures, but none of this matters. Instead, it is the global loss of important material forever through the avaricious actions of slob collectors.

Sadly, the city of Beirut is a place that rarely makes the global news scene for anything good. But you can change that. From now on, when you raise your glass to toast the coming new year, raise it just one notch higher for Beyrout, Lebanon and say a quick thanks for the only recorded meteorite fall on New Year’s Eve.

And then push your glass even higher and silently make a wish that next year will bring good things to the young country of Lebanon, the only home the Beyrout meteorite will ever know.

Until next time….