Meteorite Recon

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Meteorite scalecubes

Part 2. Renaissance

Picture 7. Only the find of a new Basaltic Shergottite would enable a collector to acquire one of the sacred cubes. Picture by Ron Baalke shows LA001 found by Bob Verish in the selected company of a NASA type B cube "The cube-scale that appears in the LA 001 image is my first use of one. This particular cube-scale was given to me by Paul Warren of UCLA. He said that it came from NASA and is from the same mold as the other "B" cubes". Bob Verish

Meanwhile an internationally growing community of meteorite aficionados entered the world wide web. At first with analogue cameras, later with digital equipment. Thousands of images displaying various meteorites started to circulate. Many of these first pictures lacked a standardised scale. The growing need for suitable reference tools led to the excessive use of various substitutes. Coins, pocket lighters, beer cans - whatever came in handy joined the company of a
meteorite for the time of the shot.

At that time one person entered the scene who was about to materialise the meteorite dealer's longings for a common standard into a solid block of polyethylene terephthalate. He gave them a cube. Bob Verish was the man who reinvented the scalecube for the meteorite community.

Picture 8. Bob Verish's personal type B cube performing desert duty at Silver Dry Lake in March 2000. Meteorite pictured is an OC type L4, S2 with a weathering grade of W2. Photo courtesy of Bob Verish.

His idea was as simple as ingenious. By accurately attaching capital letters stamped out of a laminated film onto the plastic cube, he achieved a striking effect. His low cost-high endurance innovation became a multi-megaseller. Until present day hundreds of images on webpages, including ours, show the unmistakable broad capitals with the distinctive convex edges.

As a matter of fact the inspiration was born out of a necessity. Let's hear Bob telling the story with his own words: "The cube-scale that appears in the LA 001 image is my first use of one. This particular cube-scale was given to me by Paul Warren of UCLA. He said that it came from NASA and is from the same mold as the other "B" cubes. Ron Baalke is a good friend of mine and I went to him for assistance in getting photos of LA 001 because it was going to be sliced-up the next day (I couldn't take the photos myself because I had just lost my camera at Gold Basin).

Picture 9. Same type B cube at Cuddeback Dry Lake in march 2000. Meteorite in situ is an H6 ordinary chondrite. Note the dent at the edge of the cube's West and Top surfaces. After some twenty years of service first at UCLA then at the California Meteorite Recovery Team this specific cube was stolen while in a camera bag from the back seat of a 1997 Ford Explorer in May 2000. Apparently the thieves were after the cube. Photo courtesy of Bob Verish.

I continued to use this same cube-scale in many of my images (in particular, my "in-situ" images, as well as, on my eBay auctions) for the next few years. Then I lost this "NASA" cube-scale when my camera bag (and very first digital camera) were stolen out of my truck one night."

"Prior to this time, I had made several attempts to replicate this NASA style cube-scale, as well as had several of my California meteorite-recovery colleagues, but we could never find any cheap method. Now that I was cubeless, I had to come up with a quick and cheap replacement. I explained my predicament to my M-Recovery Lab team members, and one of them, Monika Waiblinger-Seabridge, offered to make some for all of the M-RL team-members. She made a dozen of them, and these are the first ones that were distributed throughout the "amateur" meteorite community. This particular set was coated in a lacquer in order to help keep the lettering affixed. Monika strove to replicate the NASA "B" style of cube by using the subscript lettering."

Bob made these cubes available to a limited number of fellow meteorite prospectors and dealers, but he still considered the use of a cube-scale as a personal USP. So it was his decision to forebear from marketing the product on a wider base.

Picture 10. A Verish type cube together with a very familiar looking Sahara 02500. Photo courtesy of Caillou-Noir.

But the mercyless reality of a deregulated market, like the one for meteorite reference tools, didn't care for the creator's intentions. The demand for the Verish-type cube increased and it was just a question of time before some foresighted person would recognize the economic potential.

At this point of the story a strange phenomenon, resembling strong similarities to the Widmanstätten - Thomson case, occured. With Bob's concurrence a man started his cube production career whose name would stick with scalecube history like the glossy black crust to a Millbillillie. It was Peter Scherff who became famous as the cube-scale tycoon. Until the present it's a common misconception that the Verish-type cubes are Scherff-type cubes, but actually, the opposite is the case.

By 2003 the plastic cube-scale distributed by Peter Scherff was the most common reference tool seen on meteorite auctions at ebay. But the availability of the new standard reference did not only bring improvement. After heavy duty, the endurable Verish-cube with the average calibre of 10.35 mm tends to lose it’s fusion crust of acrylic lacquer, revealing a blue skin. We have seen veterans of the first production line that underwent five or more repaintings and are still in service.

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Part 1, "The Origin of Species" | Part 1, "Renaissance" | Part 3, "The Next Generation"