Gibeon – 106.7 g

Once readily available, this essential iron meteorite has all but disappeared from the collectors’ market and good examples command are highly sought after. Gibeon is a medium octahedrite that displays a complex and delicate Widmanstätten pattern when cut and etched in the laboratory.

That, combined with its exceptional stability and resistance to rusting has made it popular with jewellers and many Gibeon meteorites were cut up in order to create rings (indeed one is worn by one of the presenters of the hit BBC show “The Sky at Night”, wristwatch faces (by Rolex), and even guitar picks.

A strange fate for a superb meteorite that journeyed across the solar system and then lay in the deserts of Namibia for thousands of years. Most whole Gibeon specimens are angular and shard-like in appearance, likely the result of in-flight explosions, or terrestrial weathering, or both.