Orange River (iron), IIIAB

A fresh, ~150 kilogram iron meteorite was found some time prior to 1856, by a farmer in the Orange River district of South Africa.  It was subsequently purchased by Charles Upham Shepard.  The Shepard collection resided at Amherst College for over a century, until it was transferred to Arizona State University in 1978.

We don’t usually buy slices, but, when we purchased this, I believed that the main mass was still ~intact, at Amherst (see Buchwald below).  I didn’t know that ASU had acquired all of Amherst’s meteorites until some time later — and then discovered that ASU had at least partially sliced this iron.  As Buchwald noted in the Handbook of Iron Meteorites, Orange River was one of the largest and freshest iron meteorites known at the time.  I don’t know how much of it is currently left intact.

Here’s the description of Orange River, in the Handbook of Iron Meteorites, vol. 3.

This slice was cut from the main mass by ASU in the late 1980s or early 1990s, as part of a trade.  The 150 kilogram meteorite was apparently driven to Marlin Cilz, in Montana, for cutting.

Marlin took a few photos of the main mass before he cut it.  Bit of an odd angle, but you can see it was a pretty nice iron:

1,286 gram full slice, ex. Wayne Walton.