Can you define “fairly inexpensive”? I have looked in the past and it is something I could get if I concentrated on it, especially if it was a fairly small sample size. I dream of something large like in a museum. But I should look into it again.
When I was in Colorado one time I saw a letter opener that was a Damascus type metal that was made with meteorite. The guy said stuff like that was much more common when X was available (I forget where he said, I think the one in AZ), but sources were drying up. It was a lot of money, but I COULD have afforded it. I ended up passing on it and it is one of those weird, rare items I am kicking myself over not just biting the bullet.
I went a different route. I bought a good microscope and strong neodymium magnet, and before the winter rainy season I put the magnet in a plastic bag and set it in my gutter, right in front of the downspout so all of the water will flow past the magnet. Then several times during the winter I pull the bag out of the gutter, bring it inside and over a plate pull the magnet out of the bag. I get all kinds of tiny space debris, so although they’re small, I get quite a variety, and the microscope does the rest!
Stony-iron meteorites may not be magnetic though, so whatever sludge builds up in my gutter around the magnet I sometimes sift through to see what I get. Lots of water bears and other cool stuff to be sure!
I’ve been meaning to bring some moss in to look for water bears too! Lots of things I want to try, need to do go it!
I got a tub of silt from a creek in the hopes of panning out some gold dust. I may not be good enough to do it, but maybe I will get lucky and there will be a tiny flake. I got the idea after seeing someone else able to find dust in a creek and even in yard dirt. It isn’t anywhere near enough to make it worth it - just to be able to say you found some “in the wild”.
