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Berthoud Meteorite Coin |
This coin will be in our 2011 auction. It is number #001. Others will be available on ebay. This 2 inch diameter medal was made to commemorate the fall of the Berthoud, Colorado eucrite meteorite at 1:33 pm on October 5th, 2004. A single 960 gram stone was observed to hit the ground in a horse pen about 100 feet south of the farm house depicted on the coin. Longs Peak, a 14,000 ft tall mountain, can be seen to the west in the background. The beautiful glossy-black crusted stone was recovered just minutes after it fell. It is just the second Colorado meteorite collected on the day it fell. The other side of the medal shows the incredible image of the asteroid Vesta taken from the spacecraft DAWN on July 24, 2011. Vesta is the presumed parent body of the HED meteorites, including the Berthoud eucrite, along with the Johnstown diogenite which fell 5 miles east of the Berthoud fall some eighty years earlier. Johnstown is the other Colorado meteorite recovered on the day it fell, 4:20 pm on July 6th, 1924. The Colorado Meteorite Society is working to find a donor or donors to keep the 247g crusted main mass for display in a Colorado museum. -- Fred Olsen
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